Poll: 71% Oppose Increasing Debt Ceiling

Wednesday, 12 Jan 2011 03:39 PM
By Dan Weil

Debate rages about whether Congress should approve an increase in the federal government’s $14.1 trillion debt ceiling this spring, as the Obama administration favors. It looks like a huge majority of citizens opposes an increase. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that 71 percent of Americans oppose lifting the debt limit, while only 18 percent support it, The Hill reports. http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/b ... g-increase

To be sure, if pollsters told respondents that failure to boost the ceiling would cause the government to default on its debt, possibly sparking a worldwide financial meltdown, the answers might change.

But the poll result “could embolden some Republican critics of an increase . . . and adds another layer of complexity to what is already shaping up to be one of the first major political disputes in the new Congress.â€