The survey was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and released by National Taxpayers Union.
Eighty-nine percent of registered voters believe the U.S. is facing an affordability crisis.
Eighty-eight percent say the $37 trillion national debt will eventually have a real
impact on them and their families.
Affordability concerns remain in spite of strong economic news.
Data reported by FactCheck.org analyzed underlying economic signals showing U.S. corporate profits rebound in 2025 and strong performance in major stock indexes, with the S&P 500 up 15.7%, the Dow up 13.5 %, and Nasdaq up nearly 20% over the period since Trump’s inauguration.
According to a U.S. Treasury Year in Review 2025 snapshot, several key economic measures improved. Real goods output was up 9.2%; Initial jobless claims fell below 200,000; and retail sales were strong enough that the Federal Reserve revised upward its estimate of fourth-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 5.3%.
In addition, the 2025 budget deficit shrank significantly compared to 2024.
Good numbers, but Americans want to feel improvements in their bank accounts.
When asked how best to reduce the debt, 54% of survey respondents recommended cutting government spending. Thirty-two percent recommended growing the economy, and 13% called for raising taxes.
"The surprising result of this poll is that whether you're asking by gender, by party affiliation, by ideology, by region of the country, vast majorities of Americans say that raising taxes would be the worst thing to reduce the national debt," NTU president Pete Sepp told AFN. "Cutting spending and growing the economy would by massive margins be the best thing to do."
The survey was conducted January 12–14, 2026, among 800 registered voters nationwide using a mixed-mode methodology and has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.46 percentage points.
The survey included 38% self-identified Republicans, 35% Democrats, and 25% independents or unaffiliated voters.
This begs the question, why do lawmakers continue to spend money when so many voters do not want more spending?
"Elected officials are hearing from the noisy tiny minority of folks who believe that raising taxes will somehow cure the national debt," said Sepp. "Just 13% of all the surveyed Americans in our poll thought that raising taxes was the way to tackle the debt, and in fact, if you look at just Democrats, only 26% agree with that."
Seventy-three percent want to see public officials tackle the debt by cutting spending or growing the economy.
"What we're seeing here is that a very few loud voices are drowning out the millions, tens of millions of voices who want a more sensible approach to addressing the national debt," said Sepp. "Politicians need to realize that there is a squeaky wheel being heard in Washington for higher taxes and there are three other ways to the vehicle who want to take a different direction."
