The independent, non-partisan polling firm of Rasmussen Reports released data Wednesday morning showing 45 percent of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled.

Thirty-six percent (36%) disagreed and 20 percent were not sure.  Fifty-five percent (55%) want the tax cuts preserved, a position they share with the Libertarian Party. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say the increased spending will be good for the economy, but 44% say it will be bad.

“The best way to create the jobs Americans need is to cut taxes for families and employers, cut or eliminate taxes on savings and investments and begin to repeal the twisted jungle of federal regulations that employers had to spend $1.17 trillion to comply with in 2008,” said Redpath.

NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - U.S. voters are increasingly supportive of privatized investment in the country's infrastructure, especially in lieu of tax increases or budget cuts, according to a new poll sponsored by investment banking firm Lazard (LAZ.N).

The poll, the result of interviews with 1,000 likely voters nationwide in May, found that 59.8 percent of those questioned support private investment in public assets like roads, airports or stadiums. That was up from a support level of 52.2 percent last year and 57 percent in 2007.

The report, to be released Friday, sifted data sets and existing studies of health, disaster, population and economic trends. It found that human-influenced climate change — mainly by exacerbating flooding and drought — was elevating the global death rates from illnesses including malnutrition, diarrheal disease, malaria and heat-related ailments. But even before its release, the report drew criticism from some experts on climate and risk, who questioned its methods and conclusions.

Along with the deaths, the report said that the lives of 325 million people, primarily in poor countries, were being seriously affected by climate change. It projected that the number would double by 2030.

Roger A. Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies disaster trends, said the forum’s report was “a methodological embarrassment” because there was no way to distinguish deaths or economic losses related to human-driven global warming amid the much larger losses resulting from the growth in populations and economic development in vulnerable regions. Dr. Pielke said that “climate change is an important problem requiring our utmost attention.” But the report, he said, “will harm the cause for action on both climate change and disasters because it is so deeply flawed.”