Millennials Like Action, Support Both Policies that Expand and Limit Govt to Stimulate Economy
Reason-Rupe has a new survey and report out on millennials—find the report here.
In efforts to stimulate the economy, millennials support both policies that effectively expand the scope of government and others that limit it. Millennial have a bias for action, more than the political philosophy behind it.
Reason-Rupe's newly released report on young Americans 18-29 finds that in nearly equal numbers, millennials support raising taxes on the wealthy (66%) and cutting government spending by five percent (65%). Even a slim majority (51%) of Republican millennials say raising taxes on the wealthy will help the economy, and a majority (59%) of Democratic millennials say cutting spending will help the economy.
Six in 10 millennials also support increasing government spending on job training programs and national infrastructure and cutting taxes. Fifty-five percent also support reducing the number of government regulations on business.
Notably, 42 percent of millennials think scaling back regulations will either make no difference (25%) or will actually harm the economy (17%). About a third of millennials are unconvinced that cutting spending or taxes, raising taxes on the rich, or spending on job training and infrastructure will help the economy.
When these policy proposals are asked in isolation from costs, millennials endorse all the policies—including those that cut and increase spending. Millennials like action. They think somebody ought to do something to help improve the economy, but have less of an ideological preference as to how.
Nevertheless, once millennials are presented with trade-offs, they opt for a smaller government with fewer services and low taxes (57%) over a larger government providing more services with high taxes (41%).
To learn more about millennials, check out Reason-Rupe's new report.