IN MOST opinion polls, Americans appear reluctant to cut defence spending. Of course, in most opinion polls Americans appear reluctant to cut everything apart from foreign aid. Despite all of the hand-wringing over the federal budget, the truth is most people don't have a firm grasp of how their money is spent. So the Program for Public Consultation (PPC), in collaboration with the Stimson Center and the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), tried to educate a group of Americans on one aspect of the budget. Last month they showed a representative sample of Americans the size of the defence budget from different viewpoints and presented them with arguments for and against cutting funds. The idea was to simulate a congressional debate; to put participants in the shoes of those actually voting on the budget. Then they asked each member of the group how they would handle the defence budget if they were a member of Congress. They found

Presented the base national defense budget for 2012 and given the opportunity to set a level for 2013, three quarters reduced it, including two thirds of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats. On average defense spending was lowered 23%. A majority lowered it at least 11%.

When participants were asked to get more specific and propose changes to the levels of spending in nine areas, a majority cut all nine. "All areas combined were cut 18% on average, with Republicans cutting 12% and Democrats 22%," the study notes. Most participants were surprised by the level of America's defence spending when it was held up against the rest of the discretionary budget, historical levels of spending, and the defence spending of other nations. A previous poll showed similar results—support for defence cuts—when participants were informed about the comparable size of the 31 largest categories in the federal discretionary budget.

The potential cuts to the Pentagon contained in last year's budget deal are actually less than those proposed by the PPC study group on average. So it may seem odd that America's politicians are now scrambling to avoid those reductions. Instead, Republicans have proposed cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, social services and other programmes for poor Americans, while Democrats have proposed raising taxes on the rich. Few have pushed back against the military spendthrifts, who argue that America would swiftly decline were it to return to the level of funding George Bush laboured under at the end of his peaceable presidency.

I'm not sure if this means we need to educate our congressmen, or simply stop listening to them. It probably doesn't matter. As R. Jeffrey Smith, an editor at CPI, tells Suzy Khimm, the debate over the defence budget is one in which the “noisy minorities” dominate. And while knowledge is a powerful weapon, fear mongering is often more effective.