I suppose it shouldn’t come as any surprise that our elected officials are out of step with the electorate. But given their hard core ideology and their outspokenness, you’d think that congressional Republicans would be in step with their voters.
A Gallup Poll released today, however, suggests that the GOP is to the right of its voters on deficit reduction. Not only do all Americans’ preferences for deficit reduction clearly favor spending cuts to tax increases, but most Republican voters do too. Only 26 percent of Republican voters surveyed in Gallup’s poll took the position that only spending cuts should be used to reduce the deficit. Nate Silver’s analysis suggests that
The average Republican voter, based on this data, wants a mix of 26 percent tax increases to 74 percent spending cuts. The average independent voter prefers a 34-to-66 mix, while the average Democratic voter wants a 46-to-54 mix….
Much to the chagrin of many Democrats, the mix of spending cuts and tax increases that Mr. Obama is offering is quite close to, or perhaps even a little to the right of, what the average Republican voter wants, let alone the average American….
According to the Gallup poll, Republican voters want the deal to consist of 26 percent tax increases, and Democratic voters 46 percent — a gap of 20 percentage points. If Republicans in the House insist upon zero tax increases, there is a larger ideological gap between House Republicans and Republican voters than there is between Republican voters and Democratic ones.
It’s been fun (if not completely reassuring) to see the President play politics. The issue itself is stupid. There is no good reason to let the country default, and even letting the possibility arise is irresponsible. At the moment, there is no good reason to reduce the deficit at the expense of economic growth, and default would drive up borrowing costs, upset the market, and really screw up the the world. The GOP tied deficit reduction to increasing the debt ceiling and in doing so, the party is revealing a lot about itself and the President.
Watching the Social Security Trust Fund get handed over to America’s wealthiest – without a fight – is astonishing. I could never have imagined such a thing.
This will cause tremendous poverty in future years.
a Democratic President is leading the charge.
This poll helps indicate that, yes, the Republicans’ budget position is well outside the mainstream views of all American adults. But the key is that they don’t care. The Republicans have seen time and time independent voters come back to them even after they’ve proven themselves both terrible at governance and deaf to actual Americans’ concerns.
Secondly, in response to the original diarist’s point about not increasing the deficit right now, I’d agree, but I would expect any significant deficit deal provisions to not go into effect until 2013 at the earliest. At least, I would hope so. The economy does not need additional spending cuts (nor, for that matter, tax hikes) at this critical stage of recovery. Both can and should be implemented once we are fully out of the recession.
Ultimately, the best thing for the economy would be for households to get their personal debt under control (pay off debt, stop taking out mortgages and start renting, etc.) while the government plays a counter-cyclical role and pumps more stimulus money into the economy to make up for the reduced consumer spending. Alas, that ship has long sailed.
government playing a counter-cyclical role. Tax increases wouldn’t be good, though I’m not sure closing loopholes would be terribly damaging.
Obama has proven to be extraordinarily conventional in a Washington sort of way when it comes to economics. I kept hoping that he was playing out a political strategy with his expansionary austerity. Not so.