Polling data indicates that President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act contains provisions the public supports, according to TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’:
The two biggest components of the act are payroll tax cuts, both for employees and employers (about $240 billion) and infrastructure spending on roads and schools (about $140 billion). Over the next few weeks we will see a lot of polling about these ideas, but we already have indications from polling prior to his speech that these two big items will receive a friendly reception from the public.
Start with the payroll tax cuts. Around a week before the speech, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that the public, by 2:1 (40-20), thought continuing to cut the payroll tax was a good idea for a jobs plan rather than a bad idea.
…The same poll found the public supporting funding a new road construction bill, with 47 percent terming it a good idea, compared to 26 percent who thought it was a bad idea.
Infrastructure spending was also tested in another poll before the speech, conducted by George Washington University/Politico. In that poll, the public was asked about an infrastructure measure very similar to what the president proposed: “a large scale federally subsidized nationwide construction program putting Americans back to work building roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals.” The public supported this idea by a wide 51-21 margin.
“The public is clearly ready for the American Jobs Act,” says Teixeira. “But is Congress? The next few weeks will tell the tale.”
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.