Where Else Could It Go?
6March 13, 2009 by Tyson Wynn
Douglas E. Schoen and Scott Rasmussen report at the Wall Street Journal:
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president’s performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration’s policies and their impact on peoples’ lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration. (Emphases added.)
And lest we think Rasmussen is biased or partisan:
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seeded, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama’s budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s call for a second stimulus package. (Emphases added.)
American’ view of Congress is still dismal. It’s bad when you have to say the rating has grown to 18%.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress’s approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation’s economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress. (Emphases added.)
And, Republicans have a lot of PR work left to do.
Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. (Emphases added.)
Maybe a little genuine conservatism is the answer. You can’t out-liberal the liberals, especially if you want my support.
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6 comments
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The United States stimulus package will come to a total amount of some where around 800 Billion Dollars. There is a simple solution to how this money should be used. And ANY questions you may ask are simple to answer. And no matter what is done there is going to be a small group of people that will loose out, in one way or another. But this solution is the most sold and quickest. The Government has not gone this way. I have to believe in some back room they have talked about it. But it does not benefit all the “Money people” that it seems this payoff is for. This aside, let me explain. Our country is in finical peril because of one major problem. We are 800 Billion Dollars in Credit Debt. For a while we were not only living off our paycheck but the money we borrowed from the Credit Companies. The BANKS. Now we are maxed out. And the only thing we can spend our money on is paying back the over bloated credit debt. As you know no money to spend no economy. THE FIX. Pay off the national credit dept. Period. I am not proposing it be a free ride to the people that got into this mess. As we are all responsible in one way or another. What will it do? Well first the banks get 800 Billion dollars. Banking finance issues taken care of. And, the fear of having to nationalize the banking institution goes away. Every person that takes the deal, every individual will decide if it is for them or not, will have there credit debt wiped out. At this point for it to work, they can not get a credit card for at least 7 year. They can’t, and if some bank gives them one they (the banks) are in violation and they basically gave money away. It would be basically be illegal and unethical. Only credit card you could get within those 7 years would be a secured credit card. (a form of savings, further helping the banking instution) This prevents the bailed out individual from moving their freed up money back into credit debt. Hopefully this will also give the country 7 years to figure out how to prevent people and this country from getting back into this situation. This immediate clearing of debt will immediately cause an up swing to the economy. Let’s say on the average that you now have freed up $1,000 a month that was going to the credit company (the BANK). Now, you might be able to afford a car that you and I have been holding back on buying for a while. Now you can buy one. Just bailed out the auto industry. Car sales will go through the roof. You might take your family out to dinner more often now that you have the free up cash. Or do some shopping that you could not before. These are for the most part cash transactions. Business will now start to boom. Money is freed up. This is an exponential process. And more business means more jobs. Another fix. I will answer one question but understand all have an answer. What about the people that don’t use there credit card.
Have money in the bank and live a simple life. First, I said some people will loose out. But having nothing to loose because you have stayed so secure is better then loosing your home or job. And speaking of your home, the mortgage you could not afford and possible foreclosure on the horizon. That extra money could hold you together. Keep you out of foreclosure or bankruptcy. And not being able to get a credit card means you either have to inject the cash back into the economy in the form of product purchasing or now you have money freed up to save. Another feather in the banking cap. Every state has their hand out for this money. They need to stop it. Taxes are already in place for road work and such. If the people in every state now have a substantial amount of cash available to them. Hey guess what, taxes will go up. They always do. Now they can afford to pay them. Hopefully in 7 years the banks, the government, and the people, united. Remember, united we stand divided we fall. United we will devise a plan to safeguard us from, being corrupted by easy money. By the banking institution that basically took advantage of us.
ONE more thing. Not everyone in Debt is going to take this deal. Some people are living within their means. Business needs their credit card to operate. It will probably free up 200 Billion Dollars of the 800 billion. Inject that right into education. Create a secure INTRANET so our children do not have to worry about predators. And since the schools use the internet so much for a teaching too. It will keep the children away from improper web sites. This will allow the money to go directly to our most precious resource. Our children and our future. Another spin off, law enforcement can now re direct funds back into other needs since the children are now on a secure system.
Congress typically suffers low ratings in public opinion polls. It’s called the “Two Congress’s” phenomenon, in which respondants typically express frustration at Congress as a whole while giving good marks to their individual congresspersons. I believe that current polls show that GOP identifiers hate the current Congress, while Democrats and independent indentifiers give Congress relatively high approval scores. That tracks with waht has happened in the past two election cycles, as the GOP has lost support from independent and libertarian voters that had previously been supplying their winning margins between 1980-2004.
Overall, this is a tough post on which to comment. I generally think that wealthier Americans should pay somewhat higher taxes simply because of ability to pay issues, and because — as I have made no secret — I am comfortable with government playing a larger role in the economy; in the larger sense, my advocacy of higher taxes is “conservative”: we should pay for the things we collectively want/need, and at some point all the borrowing has to be paid for.
Obama’s approval ratings are roughly where most first-term presidents find themselves in their opening months in office. Obviously, he is trying to accomplish a great deal in a short time frame, and he may be moving on too many fronts simultaneously. That I unreservedly support the president and would highly approve of his conduct in office to date — but would also if polled express “worry” that his efforts won’t succeed — highlights the fact that the Rasmussen and Gallup data have multiple interpretations.
I would definitely concur with you on the state of GOP support in the electorate. I would suggest that GOP office holders need to do some serious reading in macroeconomics, and stop presuming that reading a couple of Ayn Rand novels renders them expert in all matters economic. I know of no credentialed economist who will publicly support congressional Republicans’ calls for more tax cuts, a spending freeze, or pretty much anything else they’ve come up with as alternatives to the Obama administration’s proposals.
You know of one now.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2248.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2263.cfm
A persuasive and viable argument against Ms. Campbell’s arguments will include more than 1. She’s a conservative, and 2. She works for the conservative Heritage Foundation.
From 2001 to the present, the top 1% of U.S. income earners have operated in the most generous tax environment since the Great Depression. Dr. Campbell and Ms. Nell’s arguments amount to an unfalsifiable “more of the same” argument: Get rid of all taxes related to capital gains, and watch our glorious entrepreneurial class work their magic.
I am unpersuaded. It’s no accident that a repeal of the capital gains tax would completely lift any tax burden from the criminals at AIG and the big investment banks that created this mess. And I would include the miscreants at Freddie and Fannie in this as well; public institutions empowered to behave like private institutions can really screw things up, although in this instance Freddie and Fannie were multipliers rather than origins of the mortgage meltdown and credit crisis.
Perhaps I should amend my statement to “No credentialed economist not working for Cato or Heritage would put their reputations behind the GOP’s policies.” Unfortunately, people like Campbell have already sold their credibility for Cato and Heritage paychecks, and have precious little cred among professional economists.
The great socialist muckraker Upton Sinclair captured this well: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it.”
Well, as I half expected (and predicted), we’re supposed to dismiss credentialed economists because of where their paychecks come from. I know I shouldn’t probably go there, but by extension, should we expect that you have sold your credibility to the State of Oklahoma, or the higher ed system, or the government in general?
It would be enough to say that there are legitimate economists on both sides of this issue. You pointed out that conservatives are light in macroeconomics, so I provided you an example of one who is not. You dismissed her because of who signs her paychecks. I guess I can now begin to ignore any and every argument made by a government employee because they must certainly be vested in the ever expanding roll of government in our lives.
Your reasoning is a bit circular here. We can’t accept conservative’s arguments because of their conservatism? Herein lies the problem many—myself included—perceive from our pals on the Left: the elitist attitude that everyone with sense holds your position and anyone opposed is light in the mental department, or duped by George W. Bush, or just so daft as not to be able to comprehend such weighty issues as these.
There are smart, credentialed people that favor both the conservative and liberal responses to the economic woes we face. As I have said before, this is merely academic. Time will show who was right and who was wrong. I don’t mind waiting (to be proved right—waiting to recover economically I will be forced to do).
So I’m an elitist because I find the arguments of Heritage-compensated economists suspect? That wasn’t my primary rationale for finding Dr. Campbell’s arguments poorly supported: my criticism is that her arguments are unfalsifiable and amount to a “more of the same” argument that justified the distributiono of resources between 2001-2006.
And, yes, the government under Republicans engaged in aggressive redistribution of wealth; they just used PR terms like “giving money back to American taxpayer” to hid the fact that the wealthy fared a lot better. And I don’t hate the wealthy; in fact, I aspire to make enough money to find myself in the 39% tax bracket, and I pay my taxes without resentment because I view them as a legitimate way for government to meet its obligations.
We can argue the merits of Keynes and Galbraith vs. Schumpeter and Friedman. Ten years ago I think the community of economic scholars felt the advantage was with the conservatives; now, I suspect that Nixon’s confession that “We’re all Keynesians” is gaining greater credence. There are certainly intellectual positions to be found on both the left and right justifying liberal or conservative economic policies. My specific point was that elected GOP office holders seem to be poorly educated in the conservative economic theories they are attempting to serve. Reading “Atlas Shrugged” does not make a person an expert in macroeconomics.
Tyson, I don’t think you are stupid or “light in the education” department. I do think that you are mistaken in your basic approach to the nexus between politics and economics, but if I didn’t think that you were capable of setting your ideology aside and looking at things from an objective perspective, then I wouldn’t be posting on your site. I enjoy the collision of ideas.
You are surely correct that all this talk is largely academic, which is not to say unimportant. History has a way of proving and disproving our ideological pretensions. Witness Amity Shlaes attempts to prove that the New Deal was a failure. Like you, I am a patient person; unlike you, I suspect that we will both find plenty of reasons to believe that we were right all along.