Los Angeles – Despite growing concerns about the country’s long-term fiscal problems and an intensifying debate in Washington about how to deal with them, Americans strongly oppose some of the major remedies under consideration, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey finds that Americans prefer to keep Medicare just the way it is. Most also oppose cuts in Medicaid and the defense budget. More than half say they are against small, across-the-board tax increases combined with modest reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits. Only President Obama’s call to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans enjoys solid support.

On Monday, Standard & Poor’s, for the first time, shifted its outlook on U.S. creditworthiness to “negative” because of the nation’s accumulating debt. The announcement rattled investors and could increase pressure on both sides in Washington to work out a broader deal as part of the upcoming vote over increasing the government’s borrowing authority.

The president and congressional Republicans have set out sharply differing blueprints to deal with the looming problem. Obama has called for agreement on at least a framework by early summer, which roughly coincides with the deadline for raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

Public resistance to many proposals in the competing plans could greatly complicate those discussions. Altering entitlement programs still involves political risk, the poll shows, and proponents of such changes face a substantial challenge in persuading the public that they are needed.

The two sides are far apart philosophically, and neither enjoys great public confidence: Fifty-eight percent of those polled disapprove of the way the president is handling the budget deficit. Even more — 64 percent — give Republicans in Congress low marks.

The public is split about evenly on whether Obama or congressional Republicans are more trusted to find the right balance between cutting unnecessary spending and preserving priorities.

On that question, public opinion is unchanged since last month, despite the recent battle over funding the government for the rest of the current fiscal year, resulting in a deal that includes $38 billion in cuts and that came barely an hour before the government was scheduled to shut down.

Congressional Republicans maintain a narrow edge over Obama when it comes to taking a “stronger leadership role” in Washington, 45 to 40 percent. And political independents side with the Republicans on tackling the burgeoning debt. But Obama maintains a key, double-digit advantage among independents when it comes to “protecting the middle class.”

The Republican budget plan, drafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) and approved by the House last week, calls for a major restructuring of Medicare and Medicaid, with sizable savings in future costs. Obama, in his plan, opposes the GOP’s restructuring, but he has said that future savings will be needed to keep Medicare solvent.

The Post-ABC poll finds that 78 percent oppose cutting spending on Medicare as a way to chip away at the debt. On Medicaid — the government insurance program for the poor — 69 percent disapprove of cuts.

There is also broad opposition to cuts in military spending to reduce the debt, but at somewhat lower levels (56 percent).

In his speech last week, the president renewed his call to raise tax rates on family income over $250,000, and he appears to hold the high ground politically, according to the poll. At this point, 72 percent support raising taxes along those lines, with 54 percent strongly backing this approach. The proposal enjoys the support of majorities of Democrats (91 percent), independents (68 percent) and Republicans (54 percent). Only among people with annual incomes greater than $100,000 does less than a majority “strongly support” such tax increases.

An across-the-board tax increase is decidedly less popular, at least when coupled with benefit reductions. A report by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility , co-chaired by former senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, recommended “shared sacrifice.” But in the poll, a slim majority — 53 percent — opposes small tax increases and minor benefit cuts for all as a way to significantly reduce the debt. Strong opposition to that kind of solution outnumbers strong support by 2 to 1.

There is broad support for keeping Medicare structured the way it has been since it was instituted in 1965: as a defined-benefit health insurance program. Just 34 percent of Americans say Medicare should be changed along the lines outlined in the Ryan budget proposal, shifting it away from a defined-benefit plan. Under that proposal, recipients would select from a group of insurance plans providing guaranteed coverage, and the government would provide a payment to the insurer, subsidizing the cost. Advocates say this approach is more sophisticated than a pure voucher plan.

In his speech last week, Obama attacked that idea, saying it could leave some Americans without adequate coverage and would end “Medicare as we know it.”

While the debt issue lingers, most Americans — 59 percent — do approve of the deal stitched together to avoid a government shutdown by cutting billions from this year’s budget.

The telephone poll was conducted April 14 to 17 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Standard & Poor's threatened Monday to downgrade the United States' prized AAA credit rating unless the Obama administration and Congress find a way to slash the yawning federal budget deficit within two years.

S&P, which assigns ratings to guide investors on the risks involved in buying debt instruments, slapped a negative outlook on the country's top-notch credit rating and said there's at least a one-in-three chance that it could eventually cut it.

A downgrade, which would leave Germany and France with a higher rating, would erode the status of the United States as the world's most powerful economy and the dollar's role as the dominant global currency.

If investors start demanding higher returns for holding riskier U.S. debt, the rise in bond yields would crank up borrowing costs for consumers and businesses. That would threaten to hurt the economy as it recovers from the worst recession since World War II.

"This new warning highlights the need for the U.S. to take better control of its fiscal destiny if it is to avoid higher borrowing costs and maintain its central role at the core of the global economy," said Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive at PIMCO, which oversees $1.2 trillion in assets and has a short position on U.S. government debt.

Major U.S. stock indexes fell than 1 percent on the day. Longer-dated government bond prices initially fell but recovered to post solid gains as falling stocks took over as the main driver for price action in the Treasury market. Bond prices frequently trade inversely to stocks.

The dollar also rose as more immediate fiscal problems in Greece hurt the euro and supported some U.S. assets.

The cost of insuring Treasury debt against default at one point Monday neared a 2011 high, though it was well below lofty levels hit two years ago when fears of a double-dip U.S. recession raged.

BUDGET BATTLE

The threat of a downgrade raises the stakes in the struggle between President Obama's Democratic administration and his Republican opponents in the House to get control over a nearly $1.4 trillion budget deficit and $14.27 trillion debt burden.

The White House last week announced plans to trim $4 trillion from the deficit over the next 12 years, mostly through spending cuts and tax hikes on the rich. Congressional Republicans want deeper spending cuts and no tax increases.

The deficit problem has become crushing since the financial crisis of 2008. Now for every dollar the federal government spends, it takes in less than 60 cents in revenue.

A budget deficit running at nearly 10 percent of output and expected to grow will likely further swell a public debt load that's already more than 60 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

"Because the U.S. has, relative to its AAA peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness, and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable," S&P said.

Even so, Austan Goolsbee, the top economist at the White House, downplayed S&P's move, telling CNBC Monday it was a "political judgment" that "we don't agree with."

DoubleLine Chief Executive Jeffrey Gundlach said Monday that the S&P warning "should serve as an effective cattle prod in pushing the politicians toward a program of spending cuts and tax increases."

"NOT THE END OF THE WORLD"

Some on Wall Street also downplayed the immediate impact.

"If a corporate entity had the same kind of unsustainable leverage problems, it would have been downgraded long ago," said Robert Bishop, chief investment officer of fixed income at SCM Advisors in San Francisco.

"But from the standpoint of the sovereign, being on outlook negative is not the end of world," he added. "Japan, for example, is a double-A credit."

S&P downgraded Japan's rating earlier this year for the first time since 2002, saying Tokyo had no plan to deal with its mounting debt burden.

But unlike the United States, almost all Japanese debt is held by domestic investors. That means the country need not depend on foreigners for financing.

Axel Merk, president of Merk Hard Currency Fund in Palo Alto, California, said Monday's warning was "a wake-up call that we need to do something in the U.S." S&P is "absolutely correct that this is something serious that needs to be addressed."

Moody's, S&P's main rival in the ratings business, also maintains a Aaa credit rating - its highest - on the United States.

For PIMCO, the world's largest bond fund, the picture had become bleak enough to prompt it to announce in February it had sold all U.S. Treasuries in its $236 billion Total Return Fund.

Bill Gross, PIMCO's chief investment officer, said he expected interest rates to climb, the dollar to fall and the United States to eventually lose its AAA credit rating.

The ratings agency said neither the White House nor Republican plan does enough to fix the shortfall, and the tension between the parties has cast doubt on whether they will be able to work together on a long-term solution.

"Looking at the gulf between the parties, it has never been wider than now," David Beers, S&P's global head of sovereign ratings, said Monday. "It takes a lot of political will to bridge this gulf."

A U.S. congressional report last week blamed ratings companies such as S&P and Moody's Corp for triggering the financial crisis when they cut the inflated ratings they had applied to complex mortgage-backed securities.

George Feldenkreis, CEO of Perry Ellis International, said that casts doubt on S&P's outlook.

The ratings agency "does not have the intellect or systems to judge the ability of the U.S. economy or political system to resolve its issues of taxation and needed budget cuts," he said.

Moody's put some issues of U.S. Treasury debt on watch for a downgrade in 1996 when the White House and Congress failed to extend the government's debt ceiling.

The two sides are heading for a similar showdown over the $14.3 trillion legal borrowing limit, which will have to be extended within weeks.

SOURING ON THE DOLLAR

The U.S. debt burden has grown exponentially after a housing bubble burst in 2007 and set off a world financial crisis that toppled several Wall Street banks, drove up the jobless rate and thrust the global economy into recession.

Governments around the world were forced to increase public spending to prevent their economies from lurching into an even worse depression.

The tactics helped spark a recovery but left the United States and other advanced economies, which were hit hardest by the crisis, with staggeringly large debt burdens.

Though it rose Monday, the dollar is down about 5 percent against major currencies in 2011. S&P's move, coupled with record low U.S. interest rates, will do little to make it more attractive, said Kathy Lien, director of research at GFT.

"Even though I don't think an actual downgrade would occur, in this very sensitive or vulnerable time for the U.S. dollar, it's enough to spook investors from holding or buying dollars," she said.

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong, Jennifer Ablan, Herb Lash, Al Yoon, Dena Aubin, Wanfeng Zhou and Frank Tang; editing by Frank McGurty)

Washington – The new House budget for 2012 draws heavily on the vision of a one-man think tank, Rep. Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin, who called today’s vote a “defining moment.”

The plan, which passed today on a near party-line vote, 235 to 193, aims to lop some $5.8 trillion off federal spending over the next 10 years. It would do this mainly by embracing Congressman Ryan's signature issue – overhauling entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid – but also by cutting the federal workforce by 10 percent and setting a binding cap on total spending as a percentage of the economy.

But the path ahead signals a completely different means of lawmaking. Where the House's so-called "Ryan bill" is associated with only one man, both the Senate and the president are focusing on trying to build bipartisan consensus.

RELATED: Obama vs. Paul Ryan: five ways their debt plans differ

In the Senate the so-called Gang of Six senators – including four veterans of the president’s Simpson-Bowles deficit commission – have been working behind closed doors for nearly five months to translate the findings of that commission into legislative language that could pass the Senate. Meanwhile, President Obama this week called on congressional leaders to set up nine-member, bipartisan group, headed by Vice President Joe Biden, to produce a blueprint by the end of June to cut $4 trillion out of federal deficits.

But the speed of the House's efforts – passing the 2012 budget only a day after it passed the 2011 spending bill to avoided a government shutdown – is putting pressure on the Senate, in particular, to pick up the pace. Senate Democratic leaders have said the House budget will be dead on arrival because of its drastic changes to Medicare, and they are eager to present something as an alternative.

“We’re making progress,” says Sen. Richard Durbin (D) of Illinois, the deputy majority leader and a member of the Gang of Six. "If we can put a deal on the table, it will be an integral part of the debate,” he adds. “But there come a time – and we’re coming close to it – when our relevance runs up against timing.”

Gang of Six negotiationsUntil now, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota has delayed committee deliberations on a 2012 budget in order to wait on the Gang of Six, which includes Senators Conrad and Durbin, as well as Sens. Mark Warner (D) of Virginia, Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, Saxby Chambliss (R) of Georgia, and Mike Crapo (R) of Idaho.

The vice president has urged the Gang of Six to continue their work, even as he launches his bipartisan negotiations.

Both the House budget and ongoing bipartisan efforts in the Senate draw on recommendations of the deficit commission. The Ryan plan credits the fiscal commission with identifying ways to save on discretionary spending, including cutting corporate tax breaks, overhauling how the government manages real estate assets, and reducing the federal auto fleet by 20 percent.

But House Republicans reject outright any effort to close the deficit gap by raising taxes. The House plan eliminates some $800 billion in tax increases related to implementation of the president’s health-care reform law and extends Bush-era tax cuts.

In the Senate, however, two Republicans in the Gang of Six – Senators Coburn and Crapo – backed tax increases as part of a comprehensive plan to resolve the nation’s debt crisis. “I’m hopeful we are getting to an agreement that’s good,” said Coburn Thursday.

House sparringDemocrats predicted that controversy over the House budget would run through 2012 elections and beyond. “It is an ethic for our country to keep our bedrock promise to our seniors, to keep our promise of Medicare, a benefit they have earned through a lifetime of work,” said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. “House Republicans are voting to break that promise, jeopardizing the health and economic security of America's seniors.”

In a response on the floor, Ryan said that Medicare as we know it will be bankrupt in nine years. “The biggest threat to Medicare is the status quo,â€

“This budget will bring more certainty to the American people – show the American people that we're serious about cutting spending – because we all know that cutting spending will reduce some of the uncertainty that's causing job creators to sit on their hands,” said Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio before Friday’s vote.

Asked at a press briefing whether he intended to appoint members to serve on the Biden commission, Boehner said: “We've had commissions around here and we've had commissions. Nobody's ever paid much attention. And clearly the president didn't pay any attention to his own deficit-reduction commission. The conversations are going to continue. We'll know more in the future.