Jun 18 2009, 3:49PM
A Nation of Deficit Hawks Or Hypocrites?
Well that was fast. Two big polls came out last night and this morning
-- here's the CBS/NYT poll and here's the NBC/WSJ poll -- to find that the administration's agenda is starting its trip down the tubes. "Obama Poll Sees Doubt on Budget and Health Care," headlines the
Times. "Public Wary of Deficit, Economic Intervention," headlines the
Journal.
Right, so there is a lot of interesting stuff in the polls. (The
Journal poll, in particular, finds that the auto crisis has made
American more likely to purchase American cars. Or so they say.) But I
find the results on the deficit genuinely confusing.
The Journal poll has a solid majority (58%) agreeing that "The President and the Congress should worry more about keeping the budget deficit down, even though it may mean it will take longer for the economy to recover." The Times poll has a majority (52%) siding with the view that the "federal government should NOT spend money to stimulate the national economy and should instead focus on reducing the budget deficit." And YES, all caps in the original.
I find this odd because Americans overwhelming supported the recent effort to ... spent a humongous pile of money stimulating the economy. You can find a rundown of 11 polls on this here. In every poll -- every single poll -- a big plurality of Americans supports the stimulus, and in nine of the polls a majority of the public supports it. Sometimes as much as 70% of the public supports it.
I know public opinion is complicated and preferences can work on many levels and so forth, but I would have thought it would take at least six months to do a complete somersault on this.
It's a nation of neither. We're a nation of constantly varying attention spans, wants and desires.
Here's a possible reason: everyone "feels" like the economy is getting better (except for the jobless) and has successfully reeled from the brink of global economic collapse. Now that the threat is mentally gone, the need for the stimulus will mentally be gone as well.
At the same time they're forgetting the last three financial quarters, they're being assaulted by big new spending programs and regulatory measures.
How easily we forget. Tada! Backflip. Or somersault. Whatever.
It doesn't seem confusing or even surprising to me (certainly not hypocritical). The date of the article you cited was January 27th, 2009. At that point the concept of economic stimulus sounded good but the details were not defined yet. The devil is in the details.
It turned out that the economic stimulus package, designed by Nancy Pelosi, was your typical congressional porkfest that would not even stimulate much in the short run (when we needed it). The more the public understood the specifics of the stimulus package, the less they liked it. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are now making noise about moving away from the dollar as the reserve currency (because of inflation fears). Wow! People are worried about inflation because Obama has been spending like a country of drunken sailors.
According to a recent Pew Poll, 39% of the public self identifies as independents, 32% as Democrats, and 22% as Republicans. The independents are mainly social liberals and fiscal conservatives. Most Americans don't have faith in the government to spend money prudently, efficiently, and honestly.
Amazingly, even though Bush II left the economy in a total shambles when he left office, the public now has more faith in the Republicans than the Democrats to run the economy.
I dunno ... wasn't the bill out of the House by the end of January? I think Obama signed it on February 16 or thereabouts.
In any event one the polls (Washington Post) asked "Would you support or oppose new federal spending of about 800 billion dollars on tax cuts, construction projects, energy, education, and health care to try to stimulate the economy?" and 70% said they would!
Conor
The New Republic posted an interesting analysis on why these poll numbers are less troubling than they seem. On an unrelated note, most of the public is so thoroughly misinformed that I am minimally inclined to heed them. Granted polls have a disproportionate effect on policy.
All the evidence points to individuals and corporations reducing spending, paying down debt and increasing savings in response to a crisis made large by their own overleveraging and overspending. They evidently interpret the situation as a solvency crisis.
Its not strange to me at all that thsoe indivduals see their government as still overleveraged and still spending on crap it doesn't need and overpaying for what it needs. They want the various governments to respond to their solvency crisis by reducing spending.
The public is always two-faced. On one hand, they want handouts and "economic stimulus" at every opportunity that they can get, as long as it helps them and their situation. On the other hand, they want the government to restrict spending and cut down on the deficit. You can't have both, but people will always be greedy.
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Juan
wealthy affiliate