If you are feeling a sense of deja vu about where the current budget debate in Congress is headed, you aren’t alone, and I offered an explanation at New York:
In the partisan messaging battle over the federal budget, Joe Biden seems to have Republicans right where he wants them. Beginning with his State of the Union Address in early February, the president has hammered away at GOP lawmakers for plotting to gut wildly popular Social Security and Medicare benefits. This has driven Republicans into a defensive crouch; they can either pretend their proposed cuts aren’t really cuts or forswear them altogether. It’s a message that Democrats would love to highlight every day until the next election, or at least until Republicans figure out a better response than lies, evasions, and blustery denials.
But as Ron Brownstein points out in The Atlantic, there is a logical path Republicans could take to counter Democrats’ claims that GOP policies threaten popular retirement programs. It’s based on pitting every other form of federal domestic spending against Social Security and Medicare, and on making Democratic support for Big Government and its beneficiaries a political problem among seniors:
“Republicans hope that exempting Social Security and Medicare [from cutbacks they are demanding for raising the federal debt limit] will dampen any backlash to their deficit-reduction plans in economically vulnerable districts. But protecting those programs, as well as defense, from cuts—while also precluding tax increases—will force the House Republicans to propose severe reductions in other domestic programs … potentially including Medicaid, the ACA, and food and housing assistance.
“Will a Republican push for severe reductions in those programs provide Democrats with an opening in such places? Robert J. Blendon, a professor emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health, is dubious. Although these areas have extensive needs, he told me, the residents voting Republican in them are generally skeptical of social-welfare spending apart from Social Security and Medicare. ‘We are dealing with a set of values here, which has a distrust of government and a sense that anyone should have to work to get any sort of low-income benefit,’ Blendon said. ‘The people voting Republican in those districts don’t see it as important [that] government provides those benefits.’”
And so Republicans will very likely return to the messaging they embraced during the Obama administration. Back then, self-identified Tea Party conservatives constantly tried to convince elderly voters that the real threat to their retirement programs stemmed not from GOP budget cutting, but from Democratic-backed Big Government spending on younger people and minorities, with whom many conservative voters did not identify. Then as now, a partisan budget fight — and the threat of a debt default of government shutdown — let Republicans frame funding decisions as a competition between groups of beneficiaries, rather than a debate over abstract levels of taxing or spending.
The big opening shot in the anti-Obama campaign was Sarah Palin’s wildly mendacious but highly effective September 2009 Facebook post claiming that the Affordable Care Act would create “death panels” that would eliminate Medicare coverage for seniors or disabled children deemed socially superfluous (the barely legitimate basis for the attack was an Affordable Care Act provision to allow Medicare payments to physicians discussing end-of-life treatments with patients).
Soon Republicans would come up with slightly more substantive claims that Obamacare threatened Medicare. In 2011, House GOP budget maven Paul Ryan, whom Democrats hammered for his proposals to partially privatize both Social Security and Medicare, claimed that Obama administration projections of health cost savings in Medicare represented a shift of resources from Medicare to Obamacare. By 2012, when Ryan became Mitt Romney’s running mate, Ryan was campaigning with his mother in tow, claiming that Republicans wanted to protect her from raids on her retirement benefits by the redistributionist Democrats.
Romney and Ryan didn’t win, of course, but they did win the over-65 vote by a robust 56-44 margin, a better performance in that demographic than Trump registered in 2016 or 2020. As Thomas Edsall explained in The New Republic in 2010, the Tea Party–era Republicans understood they had to mobilize their federal spending constituents against alleged competitors:
“Republicans understand that one axis of the resource war will be generational. All of their vows to defend Medicare are coupled with attacks on Obama’s health care reform. They implicitly portray Democrats as waging an age war—creating a massive new government program that transfers dollars to the young at the expense of the elderly. Republicans have cleverly stoked the fear that Obama is rewarding all his exuberant, youthful, idealistic supporters by redistributing resources that are badly needed by the old.”
In a 2024 campaign in which Democrats are going for the jugular with seniors, a reprise of the GOP’s 2012 Medicare counterattack, dishonest as it was, might make sense.
During this year’s budget skirmish in Congress, House Republicans are expected to take a claw hammer to domestic spending outside Social Security and Medicare, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reports:
“This spring, House Republicans are expected to release an annual budget resolution that calls for large health care cuts, and Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplace coverage are likely to be prime targets. House Republican leaders are calling for cutting the deficit and making the Trump tax cuts permanent, while saying they will shield certain areas of the budget (Medicare, Social Security, and military spending) from cuts. To do all these things at once, it is highly likely they will propose cuts in health programs that provide coverage to millions of people.”
The House GOP has also already called for deep cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, including food stamp and nutrition programs. It’s likely the GOP’s state-based crusade against “woke” public education will lead to a renewal of ancient conservative demands to deeply cut or kill the U.S. Department of Education. Maybe those representing energy-producing areas will go hard after EPA or the Department of the Interior’s programs. Almost certainly, the GOP as a whole will embrace across-the-board cuts in federal employment or federal employee benefits under the guise of “draining the swamp.” Any and all such cuts can also be rationalized as necessary to avoid reductions in spending for Social Security, Medicare, and national defense, not to mention tax increases.
Whatever formula they adopt, there’s little doubt Republicans will find ways to present themselves the true defenders of Social Security and Medicare, just as many of them will always keep scheming for ways to damage or destroy these vestiges of the New Deal and Great Society. Biden seems committed to his effort to make seniors fear the GOP, and this is the only way Republicans can counter-punch.
Alan Snipes: You are not grasping at straws. A few weeks ago, I checked some old poll figures on Gallup’s Web site and was surprised to see that Reagan did trail Carter for most of 1980. In fact, the race was very close until the end, when undecideds swung heavily toward Reagan, giving him his landslide victory. I’m not saying 2004 is 1980 all over again, but I believe Kerry is in very good shape if you look at it from a historical perspective.
In response to David de la Fuente, my recollection (without going back to check for sure) was that Ruy was arguing that without Green Party backing, Nader will have serious trouble getting his name on the ballot in any more than a couple states. Oregon (my home state) has historically given Nader a significant percentage of the vote, but last I heard he was nowhere close to getting enough signatures to make the ballot. Without his name listed, he’s reduced to a write-in candidate, which will result in a tiny fraction of whatever he’s polling. That said, you’re absolutely correct that he won’t be polling more than 2% by November.
In response to reignman, you may be right about people who aren’t comfortable with Bush voting for him anyway. By my thinking, though, a challenger needs two things to happen. 1) people need to be dissatisfied with the incumbent (or else nobody even thinks twice about replacing him), and 2) people need to prefer the challenger. My point was simply that cognitive dissonance might mean there’s a larger dissatisfaction with Bush than the polls sometimes indicate. Which means that if Kerry presents a favorable alternative, the polls will begin reflecting a significant movement of voters to the Kerry camp. Then again, it could just be my wishful thinking!
May I ask why it’s better to discount the Nader effect in those polls? Is it the assumption that his support will wane as time goes by and the election nears? Thanks.
Oops. Reignman, I am guessing, perhaps incorrectly, that the questions you posed to “rt” in the previous post in this thread are intended for Ruy, whose initials are the same as mine. When I first chose my handle for this site it did not occur to me that the choice of “rt” might generate confusion on this point. Not long after I began posting here I “introduced” myself to Ruy via email–we had met FTF a couple of months before. Part of his friendly reply was words to the effect of “Oh, so *you’re* rt.” I guess if I’d been more alert it might have occurred to me to change my handle then. But I wasn’t.
I apologize for any confusion this might have caused–and especially if anyone thinking “rt” was Ruy formed a lesser opinion about his work as a result of reading my (decidedly less data-driven!)posts. Beginning with my next post I will use the handle “bt” instead.
Again, my sincere apologies to you, Ruy, and any of you other good people who come to this site to get the benefit of Ruy’s terrific analyses who were confused as a result of my actions.
Probably. I’m not sure…rt?
In response to BKW, it sounds sound, but in the 1984 election, a lot of people voted for Reagan who didn’t really like him, but they assumed nobody else didn’t like him, and that they were weird, so they either stayed at home or DID vote for him, just as in the ’80 election where a considerable number of people who voted for Reagan didn’t agree w/ him, they just wanted Carter out, which may do wonders for Kerry. Right? Somebody help me out here….rt?
I may be speculating here but while Bush’s poll numbers have only dropped by a point or two while support for his Iraq Policy has dropped more considerably, the drop in support for his Iraq Policy may-just may, foreshadow a big drop ( maybe 5 points) in his head to head poll numbers against Kerry. I remember in 1980 that Carter was running ahead or even with Reagan most of the year when I believe failure after failure with the hostage drama finally caused the bottom to drop out of his support during the last week of the campaign. Am I grasping for straws or is this a reasonable take on current poll numders? Help me out here.
Never in our life time has this country had such a horrible president as bush. Every corner he has turned comes more harm to the citizens of this country and the world. We must do everything in our being to remove this person from office. Our country cannot survive as we know it if bush remains in office another 4 years.
Get active with everyone you know and get the word out and convince everyone that this must be done now. Ignore the nay sayers and march ahead with the message. It is up to all of us to save our country. Yes it is that serious.
The poles are just beginning to show what will turn into the largest victory for the democrats in the history of this country. Keep pounding and don’t give up. I have faith in my fellow Americans to do the right thing. Even republicans know that this man is bad and that he must go. A surprising number of them will overwhelmingly vote for Mr. Kerry in this election. Tell every republican you know that it’s OK to vote for Mr. Kerry and they are doing what is best for our country. bush has bertayed everyone. For every reason that a republican can give you for why they are going to vote for bush you can give them 10 reasons not to vote for him. Your reasons are based in facts theirs are based in lies and deceptions and false faith.
Lets just hope and pray that between now and election day bush doesn’t do something else that will not be reversible for our country and the world.
Don’t focus on the poles just get out there and do what it takes to turn every vote in for our next President, John Kerry.
On this question of why Bush’s approval ratings haven’t gotten as low as the public’s assessment of many of his actions might suggest…
Bush has gotten consistently among his highest marks for being a strong, decisive leader. A portion of the survey respondents appear willing to give credit to, and possibly stick by for a long time, a President who they think is making some bad decisions. Not sure how to interpret this. Is it a grudging sort of respect that, verbalized, might be expressed in something like the following?: “Sure, he’s made some decisions that haven’t worked out well. That’s true of anyone at the top. But at least he’s firm, he knows his own mind, and he seems determined to stick to his guns.”
(To my way of thinking if a President wants to lead us off a cliff I want him to be an ineffective leader although not a complete, ahem, idiot lest our adversaries exploit the situation. “Strong leader” and “making all the wrong decisions” just don’t square in my view of the world. But that’s just me. I’m not a Republican.)
Another interpretation may result from surmise–and that’s all it is–that Republicans tend to stick up for, and stick with, someone they see as one of “their own” (maybe Bush I didn’t fall into that category) under more dire circumstances than a large share of Democrats do. Arguably this is consistent with B Clinton’s take that Democrats want to fall in love with their candidate while Republicans want to fall in line behind their candidate. Could it be that the Republican mindset is less questioning of authority and more tolerant of hierarchy and hierarchical thinking? I wonder if anyone has done a Ph.D. thesis on this subject? The old joke “I’m not a member of any organized political party; I’m a Democrat” comes to mind in this context.
In response to frankly0’s comment about Bush’s approval ratings not budging much even when his other numbers seem to be steadily dropping, I wonder about the role of cognitive dissonance.
I’ve been noticing (along with Ruy and others) that the polls have been reporting general approval of the U.S. war in Iraq for some time now, with around 60% of the people responding that it was “the right thing to do” to invade Iraq. Meanwhile, the question, “are things going well for the U.S. in Iraq” has seen erosion of approval from around 60% down to around 40% now. Cognitive dissonace would explain this — people realize at one level that invading Iraq was a mistake, but to say so out loud implies that all the American blood that has been shed in Iraq was a waste. People aren’t comfortable admiting that, so they report to pollsters that they agree with the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, but also must accept that the invasion isn’t going very well.
I wonder if something similar isn’t happening with the president’s approval. People are beginning to recognize he’s not competent in the job (which shows up in the specific questions about his job performance), but people aren’t willing to admit they disapprove of the Commander in Chief during a time of war — because disapproval sounds too much like not supporting the troops or being unpatriotic or whatever the reason. Even if cognitive dissonance prevents them from answering a pollster by saying they disapprove of the president, it won’t take much to tip them to pulling the lever for Kerry in November either.
I’m pretty sure there’s never been a president re-elected during a recession, or when his approval ratings were below 50%. Economic indicators still look pretty mediocre.
frankly0, I presume you’re referring to Bush’s propensity for holding onto 48-49% approval in most polls (Zogby/Pew excluded) — a number which would suggest a narrow loss, at worst. I, too, have found this puzzling, given that 1) his internals in many areas are well below that — as are the right track-wrong track numbers — and 2) his share in trial match-ups with Kerry never go above 45-47.
I wonder if this continues to reflect a waning halo effect from September 11th. Bush got a huge jolt in approval from that, a jolt that has since faded steadily but quite slowly. It may be that we just have to be patient, that the internal and re-elect numbers are Bush’s true “approval”, but the main poll number still has a bit of fog attached to it that will burn off at its own pace.
Numbers are obviously helpful in determining electoral outcome, and we should be rigorous about viewing them realistically. However, if I can be permitted an emotional evaluation: I have over 30 years experience watching political races, and have found some presidential years clearly giving off a re-election vibe (’84 and ”96), and others (’80 and ’92) clearly not. This one isn’t quite in the latter category yet, but it’s miles away from the former — and, in fact, feels less favorable than ’76, when Ford lost by only a 3% margin.
I guess what I’m saying is, the way things feel out there, it’s hard to foresee re-election, and my bet would be on that approval rate dropping rather than rising.
Rasmussen uses “automated polling technology”. Is there any evidence that this produces a systematic bias of any sort? For example, I instantly hang up on any computerized voice I hear. Also, I never cooperate with market researchers. But I might answer questions from a live pollster who identifies themselves as being from a major polling or news organization and is interested in political opinions.
frankly0, I think you make some very good points. Bush is getting around 43 percent now in two-way matchups with Kerry, which is probably getting close to his core support. But I agree the Plame affair could drop him further and be a major blow. Does anyone know when indictments might be forthcoming?
One thing that’s remarkable to me is the stability of Bush’s approval numbers in the face of some very negative news, both on his handling of 9/11 beforehand, and the situation in Iraq. While it’s true that he got some counterbalancing good news on jobs, it WAS just one month’s numbers, and it certainly didn’t affect his numbers on handling the economy in any case (so far as I know).
It seems pretty obvious that the low hanging fruit in pulling down Bush’s numbers have already been picked, and that turning even another 5% away from Bush — enough likely to put the election completely out of his grasp — is going to be a major undertaking. On the other hand, it may also be that the final dip in Bush’s numbers is now being prepared, and it may take just one final episode of bad news to turn a substantial number of voters against him.
The Plame affair looks to me like it could be that event. Would it be wrong of me to pray to God that Bush might be so disgraced?
Excellent analysis of the wisdom of surveying RVs v. LVs this far from the election.
You might want to go back and examine Gallup’s surveys of LVs in the 2000 election for a casebook example of the foolishness of polling LVs months before the election.
Back in 2000 Gallup’s surveys of likely voters in September and October had huge swings from Gore to Bush and back to Gore. I believe these swings represented the different interest levels (one of the factors used to identify LVs) of Democrats and Republicans to events in the campaign — and not massive swings of voters from one candidate to the other.
Since the final weeks of the campaign will have a big effect on which likely voters become actual voters, polls of LVs at this point are bound to be less reliable than polls of RVs.
I’m no expert, but only six months ago new Iraq trouble would probably have gotten Bush a 15 point bounce, what with continuous “support the president” and “we must win” from the media. To get only this much (if even this) means that Bush has permanently lost a lot of people.
Thank you. You answered a lot of questions and sustained your robust credibility.