The latest polling data indicates that Wall St.’s congressional water carriers have a very tough sell ahead in their efforts to weaken financial reform, as TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira explains in his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages. Here’s Teixeira on the public’s distrust of the stock market:

As Congress continues to debate the financial regulation bill there are a couple of things it should keep in mind. One is that the public doesn’t trust Wall Street anymore—not even on the level of ordinary investing in the stock market (much less the elaborate financial shenanigans Wall Street firms have recently engaged in). According to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, just 35 percent now believe that “the stock market is a fair and open way to invest one’s money” compared to 58 percent who do not believe the stock market is now fair and open due to “corporate corruption and broker practices.”

If any Wall Streeters were hoping that the public would see less financial regulation as a credible fix, they are courting disappointment, as Teixeira notes:

No wonder the public, by 55-38, says they are more concerned that proposed reform of financial regulations will not do “enough to protect consumers and rein in Wall Street” rather than that reform might limit investment opportunities and hurt the country’s ability to compete in financial markets.

“Lawmakers who are thinking of weakening the reform legislation—perhaps under pressure from the legions of financial industry lobbyists who have descended on Washington—might want to reconsider,” warns Teixeira. “The public is likely to take a very jaundiced view indeed of any legislators who appear to be doing the financial industry’s bidding on this bill.”

Republicans have always been the biggest budget-busters. Reagan, for example, nearly tripled the federal deficit and Bush bears responsibility for current record-level deficits. Yet, owing in part to superior GOP meme-spinning, Democrats often end up being blamed for deficits in the MSM and public opinion polls, which could have harsh consequences for Dems in November.
To help put public perceptions and expectations more in line with factual reality, political organizer/strategist and TDS contributor Robert Creamer has a must-read HuffPo post on deficit strategy, offering “six rules for how Progressives should approach the issue in the months ahead.” They include:

1). Progressives won’t get anywhere defending ever-expanding federal deficits. After all, Progressives don’t believe in ever-expanding federal deficits. Remember that the last time the fiscal outlook for the federal government looked bright was under Democrat Bill Clinton. That resulted from an increase of taxes on the wealthiest Americans — and a foreign policy that did not feature two major wars.
We need to remember that politically, the federal deficit is a kind of Rorschach test for the voters. To some people it represents government that is too large. To others it represents an out-of-control economy that has turned against them. To others it is a stand-in for political irresponsibility — for the feeling that they play by the rules and are held responsible for their actions, but the political and economic elites are not.
Virtually no one considers long-term federal deficits to be a good thing, so in the political debate it would be crazy for Progressives to appear to be defending them.
Instead we should make it completely clear that we share the view that long-term deficits must be brought under control — the real question is how. There are a number of fiscal glide paths that reduce federal deficits over the long run.
2). We must insist that each of the alternative paths to reduce the deficit be evaluated using one key measure: How will it affect our success at creating widely shared economic growth?…
Controlling the long-term budget deficit is not an end in and of itself. It is a means to an end. It is part of an overall strategy for creating widely shared economic growth for the American people. …That’s why people who say “we have to tighten our belts to lower the deficit” — or “we can’t afford to invest so much in education” — have got it all wrong…We need to control long-term federal deficits in order to prevent ourselves from having to “tighten our belts” and we need to do it in ways that achieve that end.
Economic history shows clearly that if economic growth is not widely spread, it won’t last very long. The discipline of economics discovered a long time ago that for economic output to grow over time, you need consumers who can afford to buy products.
The Bush years showcased the policies that don’t work to grow the economy or reduce the deficit. Bush took office with a growing economy and budget surpluses. He left office in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and exploding deficits. Case closed.
The reason his policies were such failures was that all of the economic growth generated in his eight years in office went to the top two percent of the population. His policies featured an economic assault on the middle class standard of living and a reliance on a credit bubble to fuel increased demand until the bubble burst and the economy fell off a cliff.
3). In the short term — in order to dig our way out of the economic catastrophe that Bush and his friends on Wall Street left us — America needs more spending on jobs and economic growth. We need an expansionary economic policy now in order to jumpstart long-term growth for the future…We have learned from economic history — and John Maynard Keynes — that to put people back to work when the economy collapses requires that we create large amounts of government demand. That inevitably results in large near-term federal deficits.
The Great Depression did not really finally end until Emperor Hirohito’s bombing of Pearl Harbor gave American politicians the will to spend at levels that had previously been unheard in order win World War II. The American economy was cranked up to full capacity. That spending set the stage for the longest, most widely-shared period of economic growth in American history.
Right now, to recover from the Great Recession, we need more spending on jobs — not less. The economy is finally creating jobs, but eliminating the deficit between our economic potential and actual output requires more government stimulus — not less.
That’s not only true economically, it’s true politically. The single greatest concern of all voters is the creation of more jobs. That requires that Democrats fight for large job programs like those proposed by Congressman George Miller. And economically it requires that the federal government increase support for ravaged state governments that are deflating growth in the overall economy by making major cutbacks in everything from education spending to police protection.
4). Right wing proposals to control the deficit don’t meet the test…The current push by Wall Street fiscal hawks to cut the long-term deficit by reducing payments to retirees on Social Security, or cutting back on critical programs like education, don’t meet that test.
Short-changing education undercuts the principle investment that will actually create long-term economic growth. It is like eating the seed corn. We must increase — not decrease — investments in education at all levels to turbo-charge economic growth over the next two decades.
Cutting Social Security payments does nothing but diminish the wide distribution of income that is essential to sustain long-term growth. As important, it’s just plain wrong. People who have worked all of their lives and played by the rules deserve a decent retirement.
…It makes no sense to argue that we can “no longer afford” the same pension and retirement benefits today that we have had for the last forty years when we generate twice as much output per person. The problem isn’t that we can’t “afford it”. The problem is that the wealthiest people in America have kept a substantial portion of that income gain for themselves…Frankly, I’m getting pretty sick of hearing guys who make ten million dollar bonuses on Wall Street tell Social Security recipients who make $13,000 a year that they have to “tighten their belts” because we “can’t afford them.”
Let’s remember that the Wall Street types that make deficit reduction an end in itself are the same geniuses whose reckless speculation caused the collapse of the economy, cost eight million Americans their jobs and cost retirees tens of billions in pensions. You don’t see the people who caused this catastrophe “sacrificing” or “tightening their belts” for the good of the national economy.
…None of them has any credibility lecturing seniors about fiscal conservatism or “tightening their belts.” In fact, one element of any responsible plan to reduce the long-term deficit involves big increases in the taxes on what speculators, Wall Street bankers, and idle heiresses pay for the benefit of living and prospering in our society.
Some of these same people advocate a “grand bargain” that cuts Social Security or Medicare in order to show the “business community” that Democrats are serious about reducing the deficit so that they will agree to some increase in taxes. Of course when it comes to Medicare — and all heath care — we need to do everything we can to rein in rising costs. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with limiting the availability of health care to every American. We just fought a major war on that subject and won.
And Social Security can be made sound simply by increasing the cap on incomes that must pay Social Security taxes to include the top earners in America…
5). To assure we meet this test, we must eliminate the confusion between investment and consumption in our federal budget.
Right now, every expenditure made by the federal government counts the same — as spending. That’s not true of businesses. If a business makes an investment in new productive assets — in plants or equipment, for instance — that’s not counted as an expenditure, it’s counted as an asset on the firm’s balance sheet that is depreciated over its useful life.
The federal government has no capital budget. Spending on new roads, or new government buildings that result in increased productivity in the economy are counted just the same as expenditures on pure consumption that satisfy our needs in the present. That artificially enlarges the “federal deficit” — and the “federal debt.” We count all of the Government’s debt, but we never count any of the government’s assets in determining net government debt.
To have a real picture of the fiscal health of the Federal government, that has to change. Moreover, it has to change if there is to be a political incentive to spend more federal dollars on investment in future economic growth.
6). Stay on the offensive. In dealing with the deficit issue, Progressives have to stay on the offensive. The Pete Peterson’s of the world have geared up to use the new Presidential Fiscal Commission as a soapbox to promote their pro-Wall Street views that attempt to paint “greedy seniors” and out of control “entitlements” as the villains of the fiscal drama. We can’t cede any ground on this issue.
In fact, the tiny plutocracy that sopped up most of our economic growth for the last decade and gambled recklessly on Wall Street are the true villains of the piece. They are the same people who insisted on the massive Bush tax cuts for the rich and a tax code where hedge fund managers who literally make hundreds of millions of dollars each year pay taxes at a lower rate than the janitors who sweep their floors.
And, of course the real fiscal villains are the Bush era neocons who insisted that America spend a trillion dollars on the War in Iraq.
Austerity for seniors, cuts in education spending, reductions in spending on infrastructure — these are not long term solutions to America’s fiscal woes. They will make matters worse.
In the fall elections, Democrats must tell seniors — which include the major universe of swing voters — the truth. If the Republicans take control of Congress they intend to implement Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to abolish Medicare and replace it with a voucher system
They will also do everything they can to privatize Social Security — which by the way will actually increase the size of the federal deficit.
To succeed this fall we have to demonstrate that Democrats are the party of average Americans — while the Republicans are the party of Wall Street and the big insurance companies…We must make certain the voters understand that we are the party of growth, while the GOP is the party of fiscal recklessness that leads inevitability to austerity…

Above all, Creamer argues that progressive messaging must continually remind the public that “it was Democrats who actually controlled the long-term deficit and generated surpluses and prosperity,” while Wall St.’s Republican puppets created the economic policies “that resulted in economic collapse and exploding deficits.” Looking toward the future, Creamer argues convincingly that Dems must emphasize broadly-shared economic growth as the central goal of our fiscal strategy.

TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress website will not gladden the spirits of Republican spin-meisters who argue that, as the public becomes more aware of the facts about the Affordable Health Care Act, polls will show an uptick in support for repeal of the act — and GOP congressional candidates. First, a plurality of poll respondents view the legislation favorably, as Teixeira explains:

…Consider these results from the latest Kaiser Health Tracking poll. First, the poll records a slightly more favorable (46 percent) than unfavorable (40 percent) reaction to the “new health reform law.” Thus, it is not the case that polls even now are uniformly showing unfavorable reaction to the new law.

And looking toward the very near future, Teixeira notes that, while a majority of voters say they don’t yet have enough information to understand how the law will affect them personally, the provisions scheduled to kick in this year are polling very well, indeed:

…Just 43 percent say they now have enough information to make this judgment, compared to 56 percent who say they don’t. Thus, more information could presumably make a difference to current feelings about the Affordable Health Care Act.
This is where the conservatives’ big problem comes in. There are a wide variety of changes that will take effect this year as a result of the law. Kaiser tested favorability to 11 of these changes, including “allowing children to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26” (74 percent favorable), “providing tax credits to businesses with fewer than 25 workers that provide health insurance to their employees” (86 percent favorable), and “making it harder for insurance companies to drop someone’s coverage when that person has a major health problem” (81 percent favorable). The average across the 11 changes was 73 percent favorable, with no change lower than 57 percent favorable.

As Teixeira concludes, “…As the public hears more about these changes and encounters them when interacting with the health care system, favorability toward the new health care reform law is likely to grow.” And, if the law’s beneficial provisions are well-publicized, GOP spin-doctors will be spinning their wheels more than anything else.

The GOP meme that the so-called Tea Party ‘movement’ reflects the beliefs of a majority of Americans has been pretty much shredded by a New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted 4/5-12, according to TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s latest ‘Public opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages. With respect to abortion law, Teixeira notes:

…The poll finds that the general public remains stalwart in its support for the Roe v. Wade decision establishing the right to obtain a legal abortion: 58 percent say this decision was a good thing, compared to just 34 percent who say it was a bad thing. But among Tea Party supporters, sentiment is just the reverse: 53 percent say the decision was a bad idea and only 40 percent say it was a good idea.

Regarding the financing of health care reform:

The public also shows its progressive colors on the issue of whether the rich should be taxed to help provide health insurance coverage for those who don’t have it. In the same poll, 54 percent say this approach is a good idea, compared to 39 percent who think it’s a bad idea. Among Tea Party supporters, however, an amazing 80 percent term this a bad idea and a mere 17 percent say it’s a good idea.

On President Obama:

…In the same poll, 58 percent say he understands the needs and problems of “people like yourself” compared to 39 percent who say he doesn’t. But Tea Party supporters diverge radically from this sympathetic assessment, with 73 percent saying he doesn’t understand their needs and problems and just 24 percent saying he does.

As Teixeira sums up the poll’s findings, “Tea Party supporters, in short, are representative of the conservative right and should in no way be confused with the center of American politics, which remains progressive on many key issues.”

In this week’s edition of his ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira, considers the evidence for the “tax revolt” conservative say is “sweeping the country as Americans conclude that their tax dollars are being spent unwisely,” and finds it, well, lacking. Says Teixeira:

Consider these results from the latest CBS/New York Times poll. The poll asked the public whether the income taxes they are paying this year are fair or unfair. The public judged their income taxes to be fair by a wide 62-30 margin.
The public was also asked whether “government programs like Social Security and Medicare” are worth the taxpayer costs to keep them going. The public’s response: 76 percent think the benefits of these programs justify their costs to taxpayers, compared to just 19 percent who think otherwise.

Teixeira concludes “…Americans will never love paying taxes. But they do recognize that paying taxes has a great deal to do with fairness and supporting worthwhile programs. That’s a fact, albeit an inconvenient one for conservative mythology.”

WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s “The Tea Party: Populism of the privileged” provides a clear-eyed case that the Tea Party is more a media creation than an authentic, new movement. Reporting on the findings of a CBS/New York Times poll released last week, Dionne’s explains:

…The Tea Party is essentially the reappearance of an old anti-government far right that has always been with us and accounts for about one-fifth of the country. The Times reported that Tea Party supporters “tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.” They are also more affluent and better educated than Americans as a whole. This is the populism of the privileged.
…This must be the first “populist” movement driven by a television network: Sixty-three percent of the Tea Party folks say they most watch Fox News “for information about politics and current events,” compared with 23 percent of the country as a whole..

As for the characterization by the easily-suckered segment of the MSM that the Tea Party is a ‘populist’ movement, Dionne cites “a tendency of Tea Party enthusiasts to side with the better-off against the poor” which “puts them at odds with most Americans.” Dionne adds,

…The poll found that while only 38 percent of all Americans said that “providing government benefits to poor people encourages them to remain poor,” 73 percent of Tea Party partisans believed this. Among all Americans, 50 percent agreed that “the federal government should spend money to create jobs, even if it means increasing the budget deficit.” Only 17 percent of Tea Party supporters took this view…Asked about raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year to provide health care for the uninsured, 54 percent of Americans favored doing so vs. only 17 percent of Tea Party backers.

And despite Tea Party supporters protestations to the contrary, Dionne notes that “race is definitely part of what’s going on,” citing the poll’s findings that 52 percent of Tea Party loyalists say “too much” is “being made of the problems facing Black people,” compared to just 19 percent of those who are not loyal to the Tea Party. Dionne adds that “A quarter of Tea Partiers say that the Obama administration’s policies favor blacks over whites, compared with only 11 percent in the country as a whole.”
The danger, says Dionne:

…Both major parties stand to lose if they accept the laughable notion that this media-created protest movement is the voice of true populism. Democrats will spend their time chasing votes they will never win. Republicans will turn their party into an angry and narrow redoubt with no hope of building a durable majority.

It’s a useful insight. Dems should not be deterred from their progressive mandate by the same old wingnut segment of the vox populi that has been around for many decades, all gussied up in tri-corner hats as a 24-7 Fox News ‘reality’ show.

Michael Bocian and Andrew Baumann of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research have a post, “Aggressive Wall Street Reform: A Win-Win-Win for Democrats” at GQR‘s web page (via Politico), which should give GOP leaders a headache. Up until now the Republicans have had Dems cornered on financial reform, as the authors explain:

Politically speaking, Democrats should relish a debate over Wall Street reform…Democrats remain in a dangerous position heading into November. Their deteriorating position is driven almost entirely by a drop in their standing — not by any improvement of the Republicans…A lot has to do with the public’s worries about spending and government, coupled with their continued economic struggles.
But it is exacerbated by the voters’ views that Democrats have put Wall Street’s interests ahead of their own. For example, almost 48 percent of voters said “government’s policies to deal with the economic recession” helped big banks a lot, according to an Economic Policy Institute survey, conducted late last year by Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster.
Just 3 percent agreed that government’s policies helped “the average working person” or “you and your family.” Our own recent poll for Democracy Corps found that a 46 percent plurality of voters think Obama and Democrats put bailing out Wall Street ahead of creating jobs for ordinary Americans.

But, with health care reform out of the way, Dems can now focus on improving their image with respect to reforming Wall St. Baumann and Bocian present some convincing data pointing to a Democratic advantage:

A high-profile Senate debate about Wall Street reform could help reverse this. The political benefits could be even broader, according to bipartisan survey for Pew last month.
It revealed that voters want action that holds banks accountable…Indeed, 42 percent said “making big Wall Street banks repay the bailout money they received” was “one of the most important things for Congress and the president to work on.” In a list of 8 possible priorities, only “creating jobs” (43 percent) was higher.
The House bill includes an amendment that requires the banks to repay TARP funds. It looks politically smart for Senate Democrats to include a similar provision…In fact, a robust debate about Wall Street reform would have multiple political benefits for Democrats. Our polling reveals that pro-reform messages generate intense responses from Democratic voters, while also appealing to independents.

Further,

After hearing arguments for and against a strong reform bill…64 percent of voters favored reform, according to recent national survey of 1000 registered voters that we conducted with YouGov…Fully nine-in-ten of Democrats backed the measure, including 55 percent who did so strongly, while independents favored reform by a solid 55 to 45 percent margin. Even 39 percent of Republicans supported the bill.

Strong Wall St. reform is a certain victory for Dems, argue Bocian and Baumann, because it “puts Republicans in a terrible position — forcing them to give in and hand Obama another victory. Or to side with Wall Street banks and their lobbyists — whom the public loathes” and generate headlines like “Republicans Huddle With Lobbyists to Kill Financial Reform Bill.”
All of which gives Dems some much-needed leverage for improving their overall image and their creds with respect to financial reform in particular, while opposing Republicans will be forced to defend the institutions that the public believes is responsible for the meltdown. Should be fun to watch.

The Republican right has a deeply disturbing covert extremist agenda for the Supreme Court – end the separation of church and state, undermine the legality of Social Security and Medicare and give individuals the right to ignore any laws they choose.
Does this sound like a wildly hysterical exaggeration?
It certainly does. But unfortunately, it also happens to be true.
The unavoidable fact is that major elements of the Republican coalition – the elements most likely to become deeply engaged in the battle over the next supreme court nominee like the Christian Right, the Tea Party Movement, and the radical Federalist Society legal wing of the Right—do indeed harbor profoundly extreme views on the Constitution. In fact, since Obama’s election these views have veered even more sharply toward extremism.

• Since the 1990’s, the Christian Right has sought to replace the traditional American separation of church and state with the notion that the U.S. was actually created as a “Christian Nation” in which Christianity was intended to receive favored treatment by government policy. The most startling recent expression of this view was last month’s decision by the Texas School Board to remove Thomas Jefferson – the symbol of America’s tradition of religious freedom and tolerance – from the states’ history curriculum
• The opponents of Health Care Reform in the Tea Party Movement and among Republicans around the country have advanced the argument that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to enact health reform legislation and are now filing lawsuits based on this view. The basis for such suits – typically a denial of the power of Congress to legislate economic matters under the Commerce and Spending Clauses of the U.S. Constitution–is automatically and unavoidably a collateral attack on the constitutionality of a vast array of past legislation, including most New Deal/Great Society programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
• The Republican revolt against any cooperation with Democratic legislation and initiatives has carried an extraordinary number of conservatives into a general attitude of defiance towards the rule of law itself and flirtation with constitutional doctrines of state nullification and succession. These doctrines were developed as arguments for state sovereignty by the Confederacy in the civil war era and as 1950’s and 1960’s era segregationist strategies to thwart desegregation and civil rights for African-Americans.

Taken together, these three ideas actually amount to a covert three-pronged agenda to radically transform the American constitution:

1. To redefine America as a Christian Nation and treat Christianity as a state-favored religion
2. To create a legal doctrine that could justify the voiding of all social programs enacted since 1933.
3. To establish the right of individuals or states to ignore and disobey any laws that they happen to interpret as impinging on their freedom or natural rights.

Democrats can – and must — respond firmly and categorically to this extremist philosophy. They must respond by saying that the Democratic Party proudly upholds the traditional American view of the constitution – the view of the founding fathers of this country – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams.

1. That the constitution guarantees religious freedom and tolerance for all Americans of every faith and creed.
2. That the constitution guarantees the right of the freely elected representatives of the people in a democracy to pass laws for the common good. The people have the right to elect new representatives who promise to repeal laws with which they disagree, but not to simply ignore and violate laws of which they do not happen to approve
3. That the constitution protects individual liberty but is not a prescription for anarchy. It provides equal rights for all under a system of laws, but does not provide veto rights for anyone who happens to disagree with a particular law.

The battle between these two views is not a battle from which Democrats should shy away. Most Americans aren’t likely to react well to the spectacle of conservatives demanding a virtual revolution against a popularly elected government, threatening to undermine the legal foundation of the social safety net many Americans depend on for their well-being and seeking to overturn constitutional doctrines that have been in place for many decades and even since the foundation of the Republic.
Republican strategists will desperately try to frame this debate as an argument between the “founding fathers” on the one hand and the “crazy liberal democrats” on the other. They will attempt to blur the distinction between the two fundamentally different visions of America embodied in the two interpretations of the constitution above.
Democrats should not let them get away with this deception. A substantial part of the Republican base deeply and sincerely believes in the three-pronged extremist agenda described above and will consider any attempt by the Republican leadership to shy away from those views as a betrayal tantamount to treason. If Democrats firmly and consistently demand that Republican leaders honestly say where they stand on these issues, the Republican coalition will become deeply fractured.
So if conservatives want to make a battle over Barack Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee, let them bring it on.

• Let them bring it on with all the rhetoric Tea Party folk and other radicalized conservatives have been using about Obama’s “socialism” and the Nazi-like tyranny of universal health coverage.
• Let them bring it on with all the segregation-era legal strategies of succession and nullification.
• Let them bring it on with arguments that programs like social security and medicare are illegal and unconstitutional
• Let them bring it on with all the attempts to write Thomas Jefferson and the separation of church and state out of American history.

The truth is that Democrats don’t want an ugly ideological battle over the next Supreme Court nominee. They would much rather focus on important economic issues like financial reform.
But if the Republicans insist on a fight, let’s stand ready to give them a battle they’ll wish they never started.

Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, has a post up at the Blog for Our Future urging progressives to raise hell about CNN’s decision to give four hours of free airtime to Pete Peterson’s “I.O.U.S.A.,” regarded by progressive economists as shameless “deficit hysteria,” according to Hickey. As Hickey explains,

Whose voices will be shut out this weekend?
The nation’s leading economists who are urging our government to use deficits today to invest in long-term prosperity – such as Paul Krugman, James Galbraith and Dean Baker.
The fiscal experts who have repeatedly said Social Security is sound and broader health care reform will protect Medicare.
All of you who voted for an active government to invest in our future.
While you are kept silent, who does CNN give the microphone to?
A multimillionaire Wall Street mogul who wants our government to slash investments while millions are losing their jobs. This guy had no problem taking tax cuts for the wealthy that caused our deficit problems – and his Wall St buddies crashed the economy.

Time is short, but Hickey is urging progressives to “demand CNN give equal time to defenders of Social Security, Medicare and public investment,” all of which will be taking a heavy pummeling in Peterson’s flick and the subsequent televised discussion about it. As Hickey says, “We already have a cable news network that does that. We don’t need another unfair, unbalanced channel.” Hickey links to a handy protest form to send to CNN courtesy of The Campaign for America’s Future.