Nation: Wishing for More for Less

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Lower taxes, yes, but voters want more services too

There is no doubt about Americans' desire for tax cuts, but there is considerable uncertainty about what changes such cuts would bring. Government officials warn loudly that tax slashing would mean reductions in police protection and public schooling, closed libraries and potholed streets. But most Americans apparently don't believe them. They think high taxes are a result not of the public demand for services but mainly of the relentless growth of the bureaucracy. Many believe taxes can easily be cut as much as 33%. How? They think the most obvious place to start the cuts is to eliminate government waste. Far from being ready to accept a serious reduction in government services, they think still more should be spent in such major areas as health and education.

These are among the main findings of a national telephone survey of 1,034 registered voters taken for TIME by the public opinion research firm of Yankelovich, Skelly and White over a four-day period ending Oct. 8. The poll does not indicate any overwhelming sense of national anxiety. When asked a general question — "How do you feel that things are going in the country these days?" — 50% were willing to answer with a mild "fairly well" (only 5% thought things were going "very well"). Fully 76% felt the future would eventually bring prosperity, and 40% thought that their own standard of living would get better during the next year or two. Republicans and Westerners tended to be the most pessimistic; Carter supporters and those under 35 tended to be the most optimistic.

But the American voters do feel concern. The 55% figure of those who think things are going "very well" or "fairly well" is down from a 68% optimism rate when Carter took office. And when questioned about their worries, they said that the state of the economy was by far the most troublesome. Some 62% cited it as one of the national issues "that particularly concern you." Only 8% appeared worried about crime hi the streets and 2% thought relations with the Soviets were a problem. Concern about the economy has risen sharply during Carter's Administration. Only 42% cited the economy as a major worry hi March 1977, as compared with 62% today. Worry about crime in the streets, by contrast, has dropped in half during that same period.

Americans' economic worries cover a wide range of problems, but taxes are clearly among the most notable. When asked what troubled them a lot personally, 65% cited the difficulty in meeting high tax payments, whereas only 45% attached similar importance to the difficulty of paying rent or keeping up a house, and only 29% said they worried a lot about losing their jobs because of the state of the economy.