In just a few days the federal government will begin to alert federal employees about upcoming furloughs and cutting programs to come up with the mandatory spending cuts that go into effect with the sequester on March 1st. And, while there have always been discussions on cutting the government, a new Harris Poll finds that only rather small minorities of the public want to cut most of the biggest federal government programs. 

Only 12% of the public want to see a cut in Social Security payments, 19% want to cut federal aid to education and 23% want to cut federal health care programs. In fact, over three in ten U.S. adults want to see increases in spending for education (37%) and health care (31%). The only programs of the 20 listed in the poll that half or more of Americans want to cut are foreign economic aid (77%), foreign military aid (74%), spending by regulatory agencies (55%), subsidies to business (54%), federal welfare spending (51%), and the space program (50%). In fact, almost half (49%) would favor a major cut in foreign economic aid and 45% would favor a major cut in foreign military aid.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,278 U.S. adults surveyed online between January 17 and 22, 2013 by Harris Interactive.   

Americans are evenly divided on defense spending, with 46% saying they favor a cut and the same percentage saying they would oppose a cut in defense spending. Just under half of U.S. adults (49%) oppose a cut in the food stamp program while 44% would favor a cut.