It’s one of the more comical aspects of the deadly serious game of chicken that House Republicans are playing on the debt limit, but it’s worth pointing out, as I did at New York:
As the United States lurches toward a possible debt default thanks to House Republican hostage-taking on legislation needed to extend or suspend the debt limit, it’s increasingly evident that (as my colleague Jonathan Chait observed) the hostage-taker is strangely reluctant to name a ransom. Indeed, the initial Democratic strategy in this complicated chess game was simply to force House Republicans to say exactly what kind of spending cuts they propose to make in exchange for allowing a debt-limit measure to wobble its way to Joe Biden’s desk.
It’s easy to mock GOP lawmakers for the brainlessness, or maybe cowardice, of their effort to make Democrats identify the spending cuts their opponents want. The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell tans the elephant’s hide with considerable panache:
“Republicans have Very Serious budget demands. Unfortunately, they can’t identify what any of those demands are.
“They say they want to reduce deficits — but meanwhile have ruled out virtually every path for doing so (cuts to defense, cuts to entitlements, wiping out nondefense discretionary spending, or raising taxes). …
“Republicans say they want lower deficits — in fact, they have pledged to balance the budget (that is, no deficit at all) within seven or 10 years. But they have not laid out any plausible mathematical path for arriving at that destination. They promise to cut ‘wasteful spending’ … but can’t agree on what counts as ‘waste.’”
In so quickly reaching this predictable dead end in answering the world’s easiest math problem, Republicans have one plausible line of defense: It’s how much of the public feels about fiscal matters as well. They really don’t like deficits and (especially) debt. But they really don’t like the kind of spending cuts that Republicans are talking about either (tax increases, of course, are categorically off the table for the GOP and have been since the George H.W. Bush “Read my lips: No new taxes” debacle).
A September 2022 poll from the deficit scolds of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation found that Americans are up in arms about all the borrowing:
“A 31-month high of 83% of voters are urging the president and Congress to spend more time addressing the national debt, with the biggest jump among those under age 35 (8 points to 85%).
“More than eight-in-ten voters (81%) also said that their concern about the national debt has increased. Nearly three-in-four voters (74%) feel the national debt should be a top-three priority for the president and Congress, including 65% of Democrats, 74% of independents, and 86% of Republicans.”
From 40,000 feet, all that red ink looks pretty alarming, it seems. More recently, this very week, the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal found a majority of Americans stamping their feet about it:
“Most Americans oppose raising the federal debt ceiling without accompanying cuts to federal spending, a new RMG Research poll finds.
“Sixty-one percent of 1,000 registered voters in the survey said Congress should either raise the debt ceiling with spending cuts (45%) or refuse to raise the ceiling at all (16%). Only about a quarter (24%) said Congress should raise the ceiling without accompanying spending cuts.”
To House Republicans, the great symbol of runaway spending is the “monstrous” $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress in December. Many of them claimed during the fight over Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership bid that “the American people” were outraged by the measure despite the fact that it cleared the Senate, House, and White House. Perhaps they were thinking of a Twitter poll conducted by Elon Musk that showed that 75 percent of respondents opposed the omnibus bill.
The sad truth is, however, that the more specific you are in identifying items in one of those “monstrous” bills, the more support they command from the public. In 2021, Gallup published a summary of public-opinion research on what was then a $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Democratic budget-reconciliation proposal (soon whittled way down to $2.2 trillion and then to a net-negative figure in the ultimately enacted Inflation Reduction Act) and found that its provisions were very popular despite the debt they required:
“[S]everal recent polls … ask about the bill in a broad, umbrella fashion, and all find majority support. A Quinnipiac poll conducted July 27-Aug. 2 asked, ‘Do you support or oppose a $3.5 trillion spending bill on social programs such as child care, education, family tax breaks and expanding Medicare for seniors?’ and found 62% support, 32% opposition. A Monmouth University poll conducted July 21-26 asked about both the initial infrastructure bill and the new $3.5 trillion bill, describing the latter this way: ‘A plan to expand access to healthcare and child care, and provide paid leave and college tuition support.’ The results were similar to the Quinnipiac poll, with 63% in favor and 35% opposed …
“A progressive think tank, Data for Progress, conducted an online poll among likely voters July 30-Aug. 2, with a much more detailed 130-word description of the bill, including in the question wording a bulleted list of six specific proposals in the plan, the $3.5 trillion price tag and even a description of the ‘reconciliation’ procedure necessary to pass it. All of this (and the online mode, and the sample of likely voters as opposed to national adults) also didn’t seem to make much difference; 66% of likely voters in their sample supported the plan as described, while 26% opposed it — similar to the Quinnipiac and Monmouth results.”
So the minute you get into the particulars of Democratic-proposed spending bills, public concerns about debts and deficits tend to fade. And oh — there’s another problem for Republicans on the fiscal front: voters like the idea of higher taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for popular spending measures.
The lesson for Republicans is clear: Their crusade for fiscal discipline is popular, so long as it is very general and you exclude higher taxes on the rich as a possible solution. No wonder politicians like McCarthy want Democrats to be the ones who name the GOP’s price for letting the U.S. economy get through the year without calamity.
Ruy has to highlight those polls which are flawed or else people will simply hang onto them as truth and become deflated… he is doing the right thiing…
A Democratic Pollsters’s Response
It’s tough to cut through the spin at this stage of the election cycle. But, in the spirit of at least trying, check out Mark Blumenthal’s — a respected democratic pollster — analysis of Gallup and MoveOn.org on his very new (and excellent, by the way) blog.
Check it out:
http://mysterypollster.typepad.com/main/2004/09/moveon_vs_gallu.html
Rory
“The ad is terrific – it looks good, it reads well, and the numbers are damning. But while I’m no friend or sympathizer to the Christian Right, it’s possible that part of the story about that ad (and the news flurry about MoveOn and other 527s will continue) will be the mocking tone of the final paragraphs’ description of George Gallup, Jr’s Christian bent. It’ll be too easy for many to dismiss it as more “godless liberals” – and speaking as one, I’m tired of being dismissed.”
That’s exactly what happened on O’Reilly’s show last night. No talk of the actual ad, just the attack in the last two paragraphs. Moveon should have been a little more careful.
what are the implications of the fact that Gallup gets to choose the questioners at the 2nd (town hall) debate, according to the debate agreement posted on c-span?
MoveON made the right decision bringing this to the attention of major newspapers and mass circulation to reach the most readers — even if the NYT audience might be more educated and liberal than most swing voters.
But I can’t help but notice the emphasis of Ruy’s analysis has changed dramatically. IN the summer, Ruy would point to the internals and show the framework of issues and voter perceptions that could lead to pro-Kerry matchups by November. This was important for encouragement when Bush was radically arrogant, incompetent, or intolerant in his actions as POTUS — done in our name with our money– or worse, when he seemed to be getting away with his frauds and on the verge of four more hellish years. This was also important background for strategizing — not just at national and statewide levels, but also among key demographics, and also at the precinct level (organizing) and individual level (debates among aquanitances, letters to the editor, talking points).
I think DonkeyRising should return to elucidating what the internals of good polls say, rather than focus our energy on polls that are so clearly flawed.
There’s only six weeks left! The race may swing on the undecideds. We need to know who they are, what their issues are, and how they can be convinced that Bush is Wrong and Kerry can help to stop the bleeding and turn America on the right path again.
Folks: volunteer — your local campaigns and party HQs need you.
Pundits: what are the internals saying — the story being the sea of numbers? These armies of volunteers need to know what buttons to push!
The ad is terrific – it looks good, it reads well, and the numbers are damning. But while I’m no friend or sympathizer to the Christian Right, it’s possible that part of the story about that ad (and the news flurry about MoveOn and other 527s will continue) will be the mocking tone of the final paragraphs’ description of George Gallup, Jr’s Christian bent. It’ll be too easy for many to dismiss it as more “godless liberals” – and speaking as one, I’m tired of being dismissed.
Surely there’s a way for MoveOn to get the point across without sticking its foot in its mouth this way; they have the upper hand logically and ethically, but when “God, gays and guns” are wedge issues, they’re just widening the wedge.
The latest IDB poll shows a dead heat for both LV’s and RV’s. But Gallup is now reporting a 8 PT lead for LV’s and a whopping 11 point lead for RV’s! All in a three way race with Nader.
Look, it cannot just be the LV model in this case!!! The RV’s are even more out of whack than the LV’s in Gallup.
Have they thrown all caution to the wind? After all, who knows what commandments Gallup Jr. has received from On High with regard to the closing months of this race?
This is where I am afraid we democrats go wrong.
Harris, Fox News (RVs), and the latest IBD/CSM polls all have Kerry up. If the shoe was on the other foot and only 2 or 3 polls showed Bush up the republicans would be out in force, with a straight face, loudly crying that not only were these few polls right, but that they under represented Bush’s actual lead, and that all the rest of the polls were biased.
The democrats need to take a page from that book. Forget saying Kerry is only about 3 points down as Moveon has done. He is UP for crying out loud! Where is our swagger?
Ruy,
Karen Tumulty on Lou Dobbs Tonight called you, and people like you, a liar. She said your analysis doesn’t matter because you are only looking into the polling process because you don’t like the results.
I think you should write her and let her know what you think.
Just a thought….
Thanks for the link to Moveon.org for that story.
On target, and no doubt influenced by Ruy’s good work.
Has this website made any predictions about the electoral outcome? Percentage vote for each candidate, etc?? Thank you.
Good for MoveOn! More needs to be done. Kerry campaign spokespersons need to trumpet the mesage of Gallup’s sell-out on the cable and network outlets every chance they get.
People need to write in to USA Today and to CNN, both of whom, I understand commission polls from Gallup and then attach their logos to them, and let them know that Americans are on to their game of shilling for Bush.
Of course they will play up their polls. Its all about the competition of the media market place. If this is allowed to go on unchecked, this convergence of partisan interest with giant media companies using polling companies to tilt elections, then our democracy is truly in mortal danger.
Wow, that ad is incredible! I’ve heard Gallup’s numbers regurgitated too many times on the nightly news. Perhaps if you expose the “juggernaut” as being full of hot air, the people will believe the “juggernaut” is full of hot air, and then vote accordingly.
All this time while EDM was debunking the numbers I was wondering how to anyone could get the truth out. Thank you Move On!