Republican voters are much softer on protecting the defense budget than on other conservative priorities

Ryan Streeter

GOP defense budget hawks need to enter the public debate more loudly right now if they want to protect America's military commitments going into the 112th Congress. And given the noise on the Hill that Democrats want to generate by focusing on START and Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, defense boosters will probably need to shout. 

Here's one reason why they should be noisy. Defense spending is an issue that conservative voters are willing to treat flexibly - much more than on, say, tax policy or spending. ConservativeHome's Republican Panel, which consists of more than 2,000 self-identified conservative Republicans, sheds light on this important issue.  For example:

• 86% of respondents in a recent poll think the tax cuts should be extended for all income brackets
• 79% think that people under the age of 40 should be allowed to invest in private Social Security accounts
• 51% say Congress should only touch the defense budget as a last resort

The 51% who are open to defense cuts as a last resort compares to the 36% who said defense shouldn't be touched at all. So the good news in this for defense hawks is that a large majority of conservatives don't want the military budget treated like the rest of the government. 

But what is clear from our polling data is that conservative voters are much more willing to bend on defense than on other issues such as taxes and entitlement reform. These latter issues are a higher priority for voters right now (we see here that repealing Obamacare and lowering taxes, among other domestic priorities, far outpace concerns about winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Americans have a history of being split fairly evenly on defense spending, but they're also quite evenly split on domestic priorities. So while conservative voters favor protecting the military budget more than the general public, they trend more in the general public's direction on the issue more than on extending the Bush tax cuts, reforming our entitlement programs, and repealing the healthcare law.

Given the willingness of a significant number of Republicans to keep defense spending cuts "on the table" as we seek to put our fiscal house in order, proponents of protecting the defense budget need to get noisier. At the very least, they should hold colleagues who have expressed a willingness to entertain cuts accountable by asking them to answer questions about their intentions, such as I proposed here last week.