Poll: Majority oppose automatic cuts

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- A majority of U.S. voters oppose the triggering of automatic cuts if Congress doesn't reach its reduction goals, Rasmussen Reports said Thursday.

Twenty-nine percent of voters said they favor automatic spending cuts -- including cuts from defense spending and Medicare -- if Congress doesn't reduce spending by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years as mandated in the bill, results indicated. Fifty-two percent said they oppose automatic spending cuts and 19 percent were undecided.

The bill President Obama signed Tuesday includes the creation of a bipartisan bicameral super committee of 12 congressional members tasked with finding cuts of $1.5 trillion over a decade and recommending those cuts to the full Congress. Automatic cuts -- characterized as painful for both Democrats and Republicans -- are triggered if agreement can't be reached on the cuts.

An earlier Rasmussen Reports survey indicated most voters disapprove of the debt ceiling agreement and thought it was unlikely the deal would lead to significant reductions in spending.

Results for the survey on automatic cuts were based on nationwide telephone interviews of 1,000 likely voters conducted Monday and Tuesday. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.