I’M PRETTY SURE A LOT OF PEOPLE PREFER THE PUBLIC TO BE IGNORANT ABOUT SUCH THINGS: The persistence of public ignorance about federal spending. “The Pew poll is consistent with numerous previous studies that reach similar results, consistently showing that the public massively overestimates foreign aid spending, and underestimates spending on big entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. British voters are misinformed about their own government’s budget in much the same way.”