CNN
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Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say they oppose the GOP domestic policy bill that President Donald Trump recently signed into law, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
In the wake of his most sweeping legislative achievement since returning to office, Trump’s rating for handling the budget has slumped 11 points since March, with a rising majority also saying he’s gone too far in cutting government programs.
While there are signs that opinions have yet to fully settle – fewer than a third of the public reports following news about the bill very closely, and roughly half of Americans don’t express strong feelings one way or the other – the initial strong opposition to the bill outpaces initial strong support.
Americans say, 61% to 39%, that they oppose the spending bill overall. Most, 58%, now say Trump’s gone too far in cutting federal government programs (up 7 points since February), and his rating for handling the federal budget now stands at just 37%. His rating for handling taxes, though still underwater, is modestly more positive: 44% approve of his handling of taxes, close to his first-term high on that issue.
More expect the bill to hurt the economy than to help it, 51% to 29%, with the rest expecting it to make little difference. And more expect it to leave their family worse off than better off, 37% to 16%, with nearly half unsure or predicting they’ll be largely unaffected.
Trump’s overall job approval rating remains at 42%, largely unchanged since spring, but just 37% say he has had the right priorities, down 6 points from March.
What Americans like and dislike about the bill
The public response to the bill’s proposals isn’t entirely negative. By a 29-point margin, Americans say that the changes it makes to tax laws – such as permanent extension of the tax cuts passed in 2017, temporarily ending taxes on tips and expanded tax breaks for seniors and parents – are more of a reason to support it than to oppose it.
They say the same of its increase to defense spending (by a 13-point margin) and its increased spending on border security, immigration enforcement and detention (by an 8-point margin).
But by a 45-point margin, Americans call the amount that it will add to the deficit a reason for opposition. By a 25-point margin, they oppose its removal of incentives for the use of clean energy to encourage the use of oil and gas.
By a smaller 8-point margin, they oppose the changes it makes to social safety net programs, such as increased work requirements for recipients of benefits including Medicaid and nutrition assistance and decreased federal spending on those benefits – changes that have been at the heart of much of the Democratic messaging against the bill. Trump’s support for the bill is also seen, by an 18-point margin, as more of a reason for opposition than support.
Views of the policy bill are sharply divided by party, but the intensity of Democratic opposition far outstrips the strength of Republican support. A near-unanimous 93% of Democrats and Democratic-leaners say they oppose the bill, with 71% opposing it strongly.
By contrast, while 78% of Republicans and Republican-leaners support the bill overall, only about one-quarter express strong support.
And although there’s broad GOP-aligned backing for the bill’s provisions on taxes (86% see this as a reason to support the bill) and immigration enforcement spending (83%), roughly 4 in 10 don’t expect it to help the economy, and only about one-third expect to see a personal benefit. Four in 10 also see the amount it adds to the federal deficit as a reason to oppose the bill.
“There’s no way we can continue as a country with this kind of oppressive debt,” one Virginia Republican polled wrote in answer to the survey. She approved of Trump’s handling of the presidency as a whole but gave him negative marks on the federal budget, and called the federal debt the country’s most urgent issue.
As Trump’s second-term job rating has stabilized in the low 40s on both the presidency and his handling of the economy overall, a 63% majority also says he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important issues.
While 75% of Republicans say he has the right priorities, that’s down markedly since March and his lowest reading amongst his own party since his return to office in January. And a majority (56%) say Trump’s approach to the presidency has been unnecessarily risky rather than a necessary shakeup in Washington.
Some 56% also say that’s he’s gone too far in using the power of the presidency and executive branch, and 51% say that he’s gone too far in pressing colleges and universities to change their policies. When it comes to trying to reduce the price of everyday goods, by contrast, 58% say Trump has yet to go far enough.
Asked in an open-ended question to name the issue they consider most important, 31% of Americans mention something related to the economy, inflation or cost of living – a plurality, although down from 44% in January. These economy-focused Americans are even more sharp in their criticism of Trump’s handling of high prices: 65% say he hasn’t gone far enough to reduce the price of everyday goods.
“We were promised a lot of things during the campaign and there haven’t been a lot of improvements,” wrote another woman polled, an independent from Texas who called the state of the economy the most pressing national concern.
Immigration-related topics rank second to the economy as a top issue. While that’s similar overall to January, the partisan dynamics of the issue have shifted. At the start of the year, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were 26 points likelier than those aligned with the Democratic Party to mention immigration. Now, that gap has narrowed to 10 points among rising Democratic concern about Trump’s deportation program, even as many Republicans continue to praise the effort.
The poll also finds increased Democratic attention to government spending, concerns about separation of powers and the rule of law, and Trump himself.
One issue that didn’t rise to prominence in the poll: The ongoing uproar about the information the federal government has released on the Jeffrey Epstein case. Just one respondent mentioned that as the most important problem.
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from July 10-13 among a random national sample of 1,057 US adults drawn from a probability-based panel. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among all adults have a margin of sampling error of ±3.5 percentage points.
CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report.
