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2 Mar, 2013

Gallup Poll: Americans’ Reactions to Sequester Include “Bad,” “Disaster”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans are much more likely to use negative words or phrases — including “bad,” “disaster,” and “God help us” — than positive ones to describe their views on the federal government budget sequester.

These responses are from an open-ended question Gallup asked Americans on Feb. 25-26, as politicians and the media heightened their focus on the automatic budget cuts set to take place on Friday, March 1 at midnight.

The 44% giving a negative response is similar to the 45% of Americans who told Gallup in the same survey that they want their representative in Congress to vote to avert the cuts. And the 35% who give a neutral or a positive response aligns with the 37% who favored letting the budget sequestration go into effect as scheduled.

Americans offer a wide variety of words and phrases in describing what comes to mind if the budget sequestration takes place. “Bad” is the most frequently mentioned negative word, at 5%, and “good” the most frequently used positive word, at 4%. After these two, Americans were most likely to say “disaster,” “God help us,” “hopeful,” “trouble,” “disappointed,” and “stupid.” No other words or phrases received more than 1% of mentions.

Read the rest: Gallup Poll: Americans’ Reactions to Sequester Include “Bad,” “Disaster”.