Reuters/Ipsos poll: Majority says U.S. on wrong track
A large majority of Americans say the United States is on the wrong track and nearly half believe the worst is yet to come, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
The poll reflects growing anxiety about the economy and frustration with Washington after a narrowly averted government default, a credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s, a stock market dive and a 9.1 percent jobless rate.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll — conducted from last Thursday to Monday — found 73 percent of Americans believe the United States is “off on the wrong track,” and just one in five, 21 percent, think the country is headed in the right direction.
The survey found that 47 percent believe “the worst is yet to come” in the U.S. economy, an increase of 13 percentage points from a year ago when this question was last raised.
President Barack Obama was politically bruised in the brutal debt ceiling debate and negative views on the economy are worrisome signs for his 2012 re-election bid. His approval rating dropped to 45 percent from 49 percent a month ago.
Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said the wrong-track measure reflects widespread unhappiness with the economy and frustration at both political parties, but “you can’t say it’s a predictor of how Obama will fare” in 2012.
A new Washington Post poll on Wednesday underscores just how angry Americans are the state of the economy and Washington’s seeming inability to do anything about it. “Anger at Washington has been growing for some time, but the latest political battle has resulted in an intensification of the discontent,” The Washington Post reports.
from The Great Debate:
Political strategy in the Budget Control Act era
By Keith Hennessey The opinions expressed are his own.
I cover three topics in this post: what important players won in this deal, the core concepts and tradeoffs within the deal, and what the different strategies might be this Fall under this bill when it becomes law.
The President knows he will get debt limit increases through early 2013 no matter what House conservatives/Tea Party members do. Those Members can no longer “hold a debt limit increase hostage” before the 2012 election.
We could also describe this as eliminating liquidity risk through 2012.
Assuming someone doesn’t find a way out of the enforcement mechanisms in the bill (1 in 3 chance), there will be at least $2.1 T in deficit reduction over the next 10 years as a result. While I think that’s a big policy benefit, I’m not sure how important that is substantively to the President. (Is he for stimulus? Austerity? Who knows at this point.)
But given his recent public conversion to deficit hawk, the President will undoubtedly stress it publicly over the next 18 months and began doing so last night. At a minimum, the President will benefit politically with deficit hawk centrists, both for the policy result and the achievement of a bipartisan agreement. Prepare to watch the President seize political credit for spending cuts he fought.
The President also has an opportunity to push for tax increases as part of the Joint Committee deficit reduction process this fall. You will hear the corporate jets & Big Oil riffs ad nauseam.
Hennessay, you missed the fact that automatic cuts don’t begin until after the 2012 elections. Therefore Democrats will prefer the automatic trigger. They have no real leverage against the Republicans and will take the hit. Then after 2012, the new congress will have to deal with the cuts whatever way the pendulum swings.
The only thing that will encourage congress to come to an agreement is to reestablish our credit rating which took a hit today. $4T in cuts are needed to fix that problem and only increases in revenue will enable that to happen.
Two things stand in the way of the $4T agreement: (1) The Tea Party, and (2) Republicans who want to sink the economy so that Obama will not be reelected.
@deLafayett is right, “We can best address the deficit by raising taxes on those who can most afford it”. There are many approaches: increasing taxes on the rich, a value added tax, closing loopholes, and ending corporate subsidies for industries with healthy/obscene profits.
It’s time to recognize that the Bush/Reagan tax cuts have not produced jobs. It’s really back to basics. We have to balance the budget by balancing the Government’s income with it’s expenses. That’s $3T in cuts and $1T in income with capital expenditures in the military taking the biggest hit because they ultimately don’t produce the same employment multiple as the other expenditures do.
from David Cay Johnston:
Default and consequences
By David Cay Johnston The author is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
If the U.S. government voluntarily defaults, how are you going to get that tax refund? Or get paid for the work your company did for Uncle Sam?
While a last-minute agreement to raise the debt ceiling could still be reached, the risk of default as early as Tuesday is causing jitters in global financial markets and anxiety among people who depend on Social Security to eat.
Without an increase in the debt ceiling, the president is faced with an irresolvable conflict between faithfully executing those laws passed by Congress requiring payments for services and benefits and his inability to borrow more.
As William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution neatly put it: "We would be in uncharted legal territory and uncharted constitutional territory."
Anyone whose bill was not paid when due would be able to sue. The federal government issues about 100 million checks a month. Default would spawn an explosion of litigation, overwhelming the courts, especially if the Supreme Court sticks by its animus to class action litigation.
The Constitution's framers gave Congress the power to pay the government's debts, but the only debts Congress was obligated to pay were those incurred during the first American Republic, the Articles of Confederation government that failed because it could not tax.
U.S. default would require the U.S. government to raise taxes on everyone. All sides would blame each other claiming they had no choice.
Gingrich debt ceiling advice: make Obama responsible
Newt Gingrich says he “deeply opposed” to the proposal by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell for resolving the debt ceiling impasse because it cedes too much power to President Obama.
“It’s basically a surrender,” Gingrich said Tuesday on the Fox News Channel, imploring congressional Republicans to stand firm in the standoff with Obama.
Obama said on CBS that he could not guarantee Social Security checks would go out early next month if there’s no deal to raise the debt ceiling before Aug. 2nd.
Gingrich, a former House speaker who squared off with Democrat Bill Clinton in a government spending showdown in 1995, had this advice for House Republicans on dealing with Obama: “Put the shoe back on his foot, make him responsible.” And don’t flinch.
“They’ve got to be courageous because this is hard business. This is history,” Gingrich said, defining the debt ceiling/spending cutting battle as an epic power struggle.
“That power struggle is as deep and as real as anything since the Civil War and you’ve got to have the courage to stand there and take the heat,” Gingrich said.
In 1995, Gingrich was the top House Republican in a showdown with then-President Bill Clinton over government spending. When Republicans in Congress refused to fund some federal agencies, parts of the government ran out of money and shut down. Instead of earning plaudits, Gingrich was blamed and Clinton won re-election in 1996.
Gingrich led Republican Party down the cliff before and he is about to do it again. Obama is playing Republican leaders (seasoned fools) as only a Puppet Master can. No doubt Obama has few back up plans in his back pocket.
Washington Extra – Mistakes were made
Anyone in public office for more than a nanosecond is likely to have words and deeds come back to haunt them. New political realities sometimes demand a new world view 180 degrees from the old one. And then comes the explanation.
President Barack Obama, who is urging Congress to raise the debt ceiling, is finding his 2006 Senate vote against raising the debt limit when George W. Bush was president has come back to bite him.
The White House has decided to confront the discrepancy head-on.
Asked about the five-year-old vote, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president “now believes it was a mistake.”
And then Carney proceeded to inject the fear of calamity into the debate, saying failure to raise the debt limit would be “Armaggedon-like,” “devastating,” “dangerous,” “catastrophic,” and let’s not forget “calamitous.”
In 2006, Obama said: “Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Bachmann for president? Tea Party darling blames media
Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann, champion-in-chief of the House Tea Party caucus, blames the media for all the recent chatter about her status as a potential presidential candidate.
“I’m not concerned about my own personal ambition,” she tells NBC News. “Right now, too many people in the media are concerned about who will be the nominee in 2012.”
That’s a wee bit odd given that the speculation began after her office announced a trip to the presidential field of frolic known as Iowa, with guidance that a White House run is not off the table.
Her denial has a putting-the-country-first sort of ring: “What I’m serious about is focusing on the issues.” Those would be unemployment and rising energy costs.
But then that four-digit number pops right back up: “I’m speaking about the issues that I believe will be important for 2012. That’s why I’m going to Iowa.” Important for 2012. That’s why she’s going.
Bachmann, who was born in Iowa, will be keynote speaker at a fundraiser in Des Moines on January 21. Some of those dang media reports have quoted sources close to her as saying she’ll also meet with party elders to seek their advice about the state’s early presidential caucus. On the whole, it sounds like she really is one of more than a dozen Republicans — including rock stars like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney — who show every sign of chafing at the bit for a chance to contend against President Barack Obama in the next election. And what about those issues again? Well, first up is the repeal of healthcare. Why? Because during last year’s midterm campaign: “That’s the issue that people really reacted against.” In fact, if Obama fails to heed that voter disaffection, she says: “I think we will also see a rollback and a repeal of President Obama in 2012 as well.” There’s that number again. And the debt ceiling? She doesn’t want to close the government, but… “I don’t think it’s good to see the shutdown of government. I don’t think that’s good for anyone. But at the same time, in the last 10 years, we’ve raised the debt ceiling 10 times.” So? “That’s what people asked us to do in this last election: stop the spending because we can’t continue to raise the debt ceiling.” As for spending cuts, she’s identified $450 billion worth that don’t include vote-repelling reductions in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — though defense is a target.
Photo Credits: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
The announcements about her running in 2012 came from the same places that said Palin was running in 2012 – these are ‘facts’ put out by speculators from the left who want to desparage anyone they think might be a threat to the annointed one. Because they say it, it’s a fact and no matter what she says, she’s obviously lying because the ‘facts’ don’t back her up.
How about somebody get some real reporters who will report FACTS based on what actually happens instead of making the stories up and have the targets deny and try to trip them up…we’re kind of sick of this waste of space. Hire some real reports and we’ll be the judge of what you say….
Peterson Foundation launches OweNo campaign on U.S. debt
While the ads are humorous, the subject is serious.
Fictional presidential candidate Hugh Jidette (pronounced huge debt) will soon be making a pitch for more U.S. debt held by foreign countries in television ads that will be appearing across the country.
The tongue-in-cheek spots are actually trying to drive home to the American public the consequences of failing to tackle huge debt increases facing the United States if lawmakers fail to balance the annual budget and continue to run deficits.
The nation’s debt now stands at $13.7 trillion and will hit the statutory credit limit of $14.3 trillion in the spring. At that point Congress must vote to raise the credit limit to keep the country from going into default.
The $6 million “OweNo” ad campaign is sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an organization devoted to getting lawmakers to act on the long-term fiscal imbalances facing the United States. The foundation was established by Peter Peterson, an investment banker who served in the Nixon administration.
Lawmakers will have to make politically unpopular decisions to cut spending and raise revenues to put the country’s long-term accounts into better balance, Peterson said at a news conference.
The ads are aimed at building public acceptance of those tough decisions. Peterson said the situation is at a point where lawmakers need to act sooner, rather than later.
When the right complains about “class warfare,” it’s evidence of lazy thinkers who are feeling desperate. If they are worried about class envy pitting groups against one another, they probably ought to re-read their own proposals. The Republican plan does impose huge sacrifices on the poor and the middle class, while cutting taxes on the rich and corporations. All in all, the terms “class warfare” and “corporate welfare” apply nicely to conservative proposals. As to the math, taxes on the rich need to be raised, and significantly more than the measely 3% that Republicans were willing to crash the economy to prevent.