American voters want elected officials to take bold steps to decrease the federal budget deficit and debt, and they won’t accept any excuses for failing to do so, according to a survey released today by FreedomWorks. Likely voters overwhelmingly support balancing the budget within 10 years and taking immediate action to address the impending entitlement crisis while opposing plans to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

A poll of 1,001 likely voters in fourteen battleground swing states, conducted April 2-4 by Luntz Global, found that 88 percent support taking action now to reform Social Security and Medicare. Likely voters view no area of the federal budget as off-limits, as 78 percent agreed with Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recommendation to cut $145 billion in unnecessary defense spending.

Other key findings of the survey include:

- Voters Want a Balanced Budget: 78 percent believe there is “no excuse” for taking longer than 10 years to balance the budget.

- No Spending is “Off-Limits”: 78 percent said reforming entitlements is the “right thing to do.” 78 percent supported Secretary Gates’ recommendation to cut $145 billion of unnecessary defense spending.

- Entitlement Reform is Necessary and Urgent: 88 percent believe Social Security and Medicare need to be reformed immediately.

- Eliminate Waste: 64 percent support eliminating wasteful departments and programs, such as HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

- Don’t Raise the Debt Ceiling: 69 percent oppose raising the debt ceiling above the current $14.3 trillion level. Support for raising the debt ceiling increases (17 percent to 31 percent) if provisions are included to cut spending and reduce future debt such as binding spending caps and/or passage of a serious balanced budget.

- Likely Voters Look to Republicans: 52 percent would vote for an unnamed Republican challenger in an election held today, versus 39 percent who would vote for President Obama.

“Republicans won the majority in the House because they promised to be bold,” Armey said. “The American people expect them to make the tough decisions, to grab the so-called ‘third-rails’ of entitlements and be aggressive in getting the budget back under control.”

After the Democratic controlled Congress of the past 4 years spent us into oblivion with historic, dramatic increases in spending, and failed to produce a budget, the Republicans in both the House and Senate are thankfully coming forward with serious budget reform proposals.

Voters are also realistic, with 55 percent saying they would prefer Congress pass a budget with some spending cuts than pass no budget at all, even if the final product is imperfect. “No one wants a government shutdown,” Armey said. “But this entire freshman class was voted in to get the budget and deficit under control. The motto needs to be, ‘If we can’t stand on our principles and balance the budget and create significant entitlement reform, then we did not do our job.’”