While the findings of the latest Elway poll show that a whopping 71 percent of those surveyed believe the legislature can solve the budget crisis by "eliminating fraud and waste"—which sounds like an endorsement of the Republican postion (and the Gov. Chris Gregoire position), there's a lefty footnote in the numbers: fraud and waste includes tax loopholes.



When asked how to actually go about balancing the budget, the most popular answer—39 percent of those surveyed—went with a combo of program cuts and closing loopholes. Solving the problem with cuts alone got 31 percent and solving the problem with cuts and taxes got 25 percent.

Here's the poll.