A new survey delivers bad news for both President Trump and Elon Musk, showing that Americans disagree with their approach to government spending. While Trump has been pushing for federal spending cuts and Musk’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) aims to “reduce waste” by shrinking the federal workforce, the survey reveals that most Americans actually want to see more funding in key areas, not less.
The YouGov survey, conducted in late February, asked people whether they supported increasing or decreasing government spending in 40 different categories. In none of those areas did a majority say they wanted to reduce government spending.
The results were clear: most Americans either wanted to keep spending the same or increase it. In fact, in 28 out of the 40 categories, at least 50 percent of respondents said they wanted the government to spend more.
Six areas had particularly strong support for increased funding, with at least 70 percent of people in favor. These include elderly care (76%), veterans services (73%), cybersecurity (73%), healthcare services (72%), disaster relief (72%), and mental health services (71%).
For each of these areas, only 6 percent or fewer of people wanted cuts, and between 15 to 19 percent supported keeping funding the same.
Support for increased spending wasn’t limited to just those areas. More than 60 percent of respondents also backed more funding for homelessness services (67%), food assistance (63%), infrastructure (62%), disability assistance (62%), border security (60%), and early childhood education (60%).
The closest area where people supported cuts was foreign aid. About 49 percent said they wanted to decrease foreign aid, while 20 percent favored increasing it, 21 percent preferred the same level of funding, and 9 percent weren’t sure.
Despite widespread support for more funding, the survey showed that many people are critical of how the government spends its money. Forty-six percent of respondents said they think the government spends resources “very wastefully,” 29 percent said “somewhat wastefully,” 12 percent said “not very wastefully,” and only 4 percent said “not at all wastefully.”
This dissatisfaction with government spending aligns with the common Washington complaint about wastefulness, yet lawmakers and leaders like Trump and Musk have found it difficult to identify areas where cuts can actually be made.
This survey comes as Trump’s administration continues its push to cut the size of the federal workforce and eliminate waste and fraud, a move that has been met with controversy and legal challenges. The survey also casts doubt on the effectiveness of Musk’s DOGE initiative, which aims to reduce inefficiencies in government.
The survey, which included 2,259 adults, was conducted from February 24 to 27. It has a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
