Most Americans would agree that tax cuts are good for the economy while more government spending does more harm than good, a Rasmussen Reports poll finds.

According to a May telephone survey, 53 percent of likely U.S. voters say tax cuts help the economy, while 22 percent say tax cuts hurt the economy.
Another 13 percent say tax cuts have no effect on the economy while 12 percent are not sure.

Tax cuts are taking center stage these days as the nation prepares for what many on Wall Street describe as a fiscal cliff.

By year end, the tax cuts approved under President George W. Bush are set to expire as will a payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits.

At the same the time, automatic spending cuts are set to kick in, and economists worry that the combination of the two could siphon hundreds of billions out of the economy and offset growth, possibly throwing the country back into recession.

That's exactly what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is warning, pointing out the country's gross domestic product could contract by 1.3 percent in the first half of the year if lawmakers don't act now.

"Given the pattern of past recessions ... such a contraction in output in the first half of 2013 would probably be judged to be a recession," the CBO reports, according to Reuters.

International organizations are flying similar warning flags for the U.S. economy.

"The programmed expiration of tax cuts and emergency unemployment benefits, together with automatic federal spending cuts, would result in a sharp fiscal retrenchment in 2013 that might derail the recovery," the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reports, Reuters adds.