Public Attitudes toward Government Spending

Abstract

This study examines the nature, sources, and consequences of citizens' attitudes toward government spending. Data from the 1984 CPS National Election Study are used to perform a scaling analysis of mass spending preferences across a set of 10 public policies. The empirical results indicate that there is a coherent structure underlying citizens' attitudes toward social welfare spending. In contrast, spending preferences for nonwelfare programs are separate and largely unrelated concerns. I argue that this distinction is essential for understanding public opinion on government spending. And further analyses incorporating the difference between welfare and nonwelfare spending preferences provide important, theoretically relevant insights about the relationship between citizens in the mass public and stimuli in the political world.