The latest unemployment stats bring a timely reminder about the importance of jobs as a central concern of Americans. In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress website, TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira, explains just how important jobs are as a public priority in light of the most recent opinion survey data:
There is no question that the public has become more sensitive to the deficit in the last year… The public’s deficit sensitivity does not translate into a view that deficit reduction is a more important priority than jobs and the economy. In a mid-December CNN poll, the public was asked what should be more important for the Obama administration—reducing the deficit even if that slowed down economic recovery or stimulating economic recovery even if that meant less deficit reduction. By 57-40, the public chose stimulating economic recovery.
When the choice was creating more jobs even if there was less deficit reduction or reducing the deficit even if unemployment remained high, the result was even more lopsided. By 3:1 (74-25), the public favored creating more jobs.
Teixeira concludes that “while policymakers should be sensitive to public concern about the deficit, they should not forget that jobs are still the top priority.”
2 comments on “TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira: Jobs Trump Deficit As Public Priority”
Tater Salad on
President Obama sure sounded like he was for the everyman on the campaign trail when he pledged ‘no taxes’ on 95% of working Americans. Of course, he doesn’t seem to count indirect taxation as a tax. For example, when he breaks his promise and decides to go through with a tax on so called Cadillac insurance plans, that is a tax on millions of Americans. And contrary to popular belief, subscribing to a Cadillac plan doesn’t necessarily mean you are a fat cat millionaire. Many people sacrifice elsewhere in order to have a great health plan for their families. This will break their backs
When we consider that the top tax rate has gone from 91 percent under Eisenhower to about 35 percent today, it seems clear that jobs or deficit reduction is a false choice.
For years, the rich have been taking an unfair share of American productivity gains. It’s time that fairness be invoked in solving our economic woes.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
President Obama sure sounded like he was for the everyman on the campaign trail when he pledged ‘no taxes’ on 95% of working Americans. Of course, he doesn’t seem to count indirect taxation as a tax. For example, when he breaks his promise and decides to go through with a tax on so called Cadillac insurance plans, that is a tax on millions of Americans. And contrary to popular belief, subscribing to a Cadillac plan doesn’t necessarily mean you are a fat cat millionaire. Many people sacrifice elsewhere in order to have a great health plan for their families. This will break their backs
When we consider that the top tax rate has gone from 91 percent under Eisenhower to about 35 percent today, it seems clear that jobs or deficit reduction is a false choice.
For years, the rich have been taking an unfair share of American productivity gains. It’s time that fairness be invoked in solving our economic woes.