First, Greece and Italy now have new technocratic governments backed by cross-party parliamentary support committed to implementing both austerity measures to curbdeficits as well as growth-enhancing structural reforms.
Republican congressional leaders blame the White House for proposing the sequester in the first place, which came about in 2011 as a draconian consequence of doing nothing to curbdeficits.
The Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll comes as politicians face growing pressure to curb record federal deficits, and budget hawks of both parties have expressed a willingness to scale back Social Security, the government's biggest program.