Poll: Americans want money spent on disaster relief -- costs be damned

Those numbers come in the aftermath of a tornado that devastated the town of Moore, Okla., and led some conservatives, including Oklahoma’s own Sen. Tom Coburn, to insist that any federal spending on the cleanup effort had to come from some other corner of the federal budget. “He will ask his colleagues to sacrifice lower priority areas of the budget to help Oklahoma,” spokesman John Hart told Post Politics the day after the tornado.

Coburn’s view is in the minority, according to the poll, with just over one in three Republicans (36 percent) saying they think any federal disasters should be offset.

The poll results suggest that even amid an active debate in Washington — a debate that will get more active this summer and fall — about the federal budget/debt/spending, there is clear majority support for expenditures on disaster areas — no matter the cost.