Nearly three-fourths of respondents felt current policy is too stimulative, about the same as in March, while only 3% believe it is too tight. An even greater percentage (77%) of respondents believe fiscal policy should become more restrictive, but only 12% believe fiscal policy will tighten, while 44% believe it will become even looser. There was a strong split in answers received before and after the hurricane, with 33% of the August/September replies expecting the budget gap to widen, compared with 53% of post-Katrina responses. In the same vein, 74% of post-Katrina responders said policy should become more restrictive, compared with 82% of pre-Katrina.
| Current fiscal policy is: | Fiscal policy should be in two years: | Fiscal policy is expected to be in two years: | |||||
| Mar 05 | Sep 2005 | Mar 2005 | Sep 2005 | Mar 2005 | Sep 2005 | ||
| Too Stimulative | 76 | 74 | Tighter | 80 | 77 | 34 | 12 |
| About right | 17 | 21 | Same | 11 | 16 | 34 | 42 |
| Too tight | 6 | 3 | Looser | 9 | 5 | 31 | 44 |
Survey Summary
Greatest Short-term Risk to US Economy
Greatest Long-term Challenges to US Economy
Strengths in the US Economy
Monetary Policy
Fiscal Policy
Detailed Answer File
Print Version of Report