The survey – which was conducted Feb. 24-28 of 1,000 adults (200 reached by cell phone), and which has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points – also listed 26 different ways to reduce the federal budget deficit.
The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable), eliminating spending on earmarks (78 percent), eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says aren’t necessary (76 percent) and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74 percent).
The least popular: cutting funding for Medicaid, the federal government health-care program for the poor (32 percent said that was acceptable); cutting funding for Medicare, the federal government health-care program for seniors (23 percent); cutting funding for K-12 education (22 percent); and cutting funding for Social Security (22 percent).
Those numbers, GOP pollster McInturff says, “serve as a huge flashing yellow sign to Republicans … if they are going to start to talk about changes to Medicare and Social Security.”
Center-right country, my ass!
Seems like the voices are there. Let’s hope the Hortons who might lift the voices through the dust ball aren’t quickly pulverized.
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Those are the four most popular, and I believe them. The Democrats need to get on it with a unified message.
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p>They voted to eliminate one weapons system already*. Citizens didn’t run around yelling “weak on defense.” Earmarks are gone, bipartisan-style. The Dems tried to eliminate the tax credits for oil and gas and failed. The Dems also tried to not extend the tax cuts on those $1M+, and lost. It wasn’t polled, but I’d bet squishing military contractors [Haliburton, KBR, etc] would be popular too.
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p>So, try again. And again. And again. Work it in to every damned speech, interview, press release. Find another weapons system to go after. Make the $1M+ tax hike part of every negotiation, every $2B the GOP wants to cut. Talk about the oil and gas profits and price at the pump at every opportunity.
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p>The Dems won’t win on every one [like the $1M tax hike]. But, they’ll continue to increase their lead on the generic GOP, and they just might get some of what they want in the mean time.
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p> * That vote, by the way, was widely credited to GOP freshmen. It’s true, lots of them voted for it. But, to be clear, the Dems voted to eliminate the funding 123-68, and the GOP voted to eliminate the funding 123-130. I don’t know the PVI of those 130 congressional districts, but these are the kind of votes which Dem challengers can use to run against those GOP members.
There aren’t as many Democrats looking to ensure that the rich pay their share as I once hoped. I don’t believe that the man in the White House is one of them.
on how the Democrats were co-opted by the rich. It’s call Plutocracy Now. It feels incomplete–like it wants to be developed into a book–but Drum says that the New Left clashed with the working-class left (i.e. union workers) over Vietnam and other social issues. As a result, these guys increasingly headed to the GOP and the Dems lost a deep connection to unions. The 1960s left was oriented to issues and identity, not work.
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p>Convention rules also changed for Democrats; they became more democratic, but disempowered the old-fashioned union bosses. That’s how McGovern got nominated. As union influence (as well as overall membership) waned, the Dems needed new funding sources. Enter the DLC and Bill Clinton.
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p>The article is interesting and worth checking out.
With 81% support, why can’t the Dems win on this one? I agree with sabutai that some Dems aren’t interested in pushing this. The fact that Obama has no interest in being the chief in charge of making this a priority, a big priority, is very frustrating and disappointing.
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they simply don’t have the votes. That’s OK though — keep bringing it up and win the votes of citizens, and then keep pushing in the next legislative session.
…that puts me in mind of Bill Clinton’s maxim “Americans prefer strong and wrong over weak and right.” It seems he was the last — only? — modern Democrat to realize that.