Meanwhile, the Obama economic A-Team — the same brilliant minds who said dumping trillions of dollars into the economy would keep us from 8% unemployment and continued malaise — assaulted S&P itself. Oblivious to the spacetime-distorting irony, the administration’s econoflunkies accused the rating agency of “breathtaking” errors, of “starting with a conclusion and shaping any arguments to fit it”, and concluded that “there’s nothing good to say about what they’ve done”.
That, my friends, is one giant truck-load of hooey. Not only did the Democrat attack poodles deliberately distort what Standard and Poor’s really said, they have maligned the majority of Americans, including most of the people who call themselves “liberals”. I’ve been holding fire on a poll that got exactly no MSM coverage during the debt ceiling debate. It barely got a mention by Republicans who could have used its results as a devastating weapon against the scurrilous sermonizing we have heard today and will continue to hear until the whiny Puritans of the left get their way.
CNN and the polling company ORC International conducted a poll over three days, July 18-20. Those date are important because two critical votes in the debt ceiling debate happened at about the same time. On July 19, the House overwhelmingly passed the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan favored by the Tea Parties and many of the Republicans elected or re-elected in the historical mandate election last November. On July 22, the day after CNN released the results of the poll, the Senate voted on straight party lines to table the plan with no serious attempt by the Republican leadership to sway any centrist-leaning Democrats.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Jimmie, my man, that plan is dead as a doornail. No one would ever vote for it and it never had a chance”, you say. “Why bring it back?” Well, once I show you what CNN/ORC found in its poll, I think you’ll reconsider the notions that CCB is truly dead and that it can’t pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.
There are three questions pertinent to the CCB plan and I want to show them to you and give you the total poll results. Then I’ll take one of them and show you the results from specific groups of people as they identified themselves to the polling company. Here are the questions:
23. In another proposal, Congress would raise the debt ceiling only if a balanced budget amendment were passed by both houses of Congress and substantial spending cuts and caps on future spending were approved. Would you favor or oppose this proposal?
Favor: 66%
Oppose: 33%
No opinion: 1%
25. Would you favor or oppose a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget?
Favor: 60%
Oppose: 38%
No opinion: 1%
25a. In order to get the federal budget deficit under control, do you think it is necessary or not necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget?
Favor: 74%
Oppose: 24%
No opinion: 1%
Now, the left used this same poll to support its contention that the “balanced approach” — slightly less spending and considerably large tax hikes — was the plan America wanted. I’ll admit that they do have an argument as that plan enjoyed the same level of support as the CCB plan outlined in Question 23. However, when you get into the demographic breakdowns — where the poll shows you what people of different races, genders, income levels, and political affiliations felt about the plans — you find that only the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan enjoys majority support from every single group.
Now, go back and read Question 23 again, then look at the percentages by group of people who favor that approach.
Men: 67%; Women: 66%
White: 69%; Non-White: 63%
18-34 Year Olds: 64%; 35-49 Year Olds: 70%; 50-64 Year Olds: 62%; 65+ Year Olds: 73%
Under 50: 67%; 50 and Older: 67%
(Yearly earnings) Under $50,000: 73%; (Yearly earnings) Over $50,000: 63%
No College: 76%; Attended College: 60%
Democrat: 64%; Independent: 65%; Republican: 73%
Conservative: 77%; Moderate: 65%; Liberal: 53%
Northeast: 65%; Midwest: 61%; South: 71%; West: 68%
Urban: 66%; Suburban: 65%; Rural: 73%
Tea Party Supporters: 74%; Tea Party Neutral: 74%; Tea Party Opposed: 53%
I know those numbers can be a bit dizzying, grouped together like that. Notice, though, that none of them — not a single one — is less than 50% and only 2 of the 29 are under 60%. What those numbers say very clearly is America supports “Cap, Cut, and Balance”, man or woman, rich or poor, young or old, Democrat or Republican, Tea Party or not. No matter where you go around the country, no matter who you ask, you are more likely to find someone who wants Congress to cut the size of government, put real caps on government spending, and pass an effective and simple Balanced Budget Amendment than not. Even the most ardent progressives, those who identify themselves as liberal and opposed to the Tea Parties and the people to whom the White House Goon Squad spoke directly on all the talk shows today, support the “extremist” plan pushed by the Tea Parties.
Remember I mentioned the timing of the poll in relation to the votes in Congress? Here’s why that matters. The President and the Democrats went all out during the week that poll was taken to demagogue and discredit the CCB plan. After the House vote, Harri Reid proclaimed it dead and the President swore to veto it (much as he swore to close Gitmo, end military tribunals, and not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250K a year). Despite the orchestrated and concentrated attacks on the CCB plan, two-thirds of America still wanted to see it pass, including most of the very people most inclined to hate it for purely partisan political reasons.
The President wants a bipartisan solution? There it is. He wants a plan that enjoys support from Republican and Democrat? It’s right there in the Senate, parked on the shoulder, ready to head down the road. All he has to do is take off the progressive blinders he’s worn his whole life and embrace the political reality staring him in the face and he’ll…
Well, okay. Let’s not look for help there. Let’s look at the Republican leadership.
There is no reason that Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell can’t pick up the CCB flag and wave it with some energy this time. Their taking points are simple.
1) America clearly supports the plan.
2) It will manage the size of government in an orderly fashion that reduces the pain to the needy and afflicted while it returns money to the economy where it can create jobs, pay our bills, and make America prosperous again.
3) It puts hard limits on how large the government grows so that we never again have to face the humiliation and cost of a credit rating downgrade because it ties the soze of government to the size of our economy and ensures that we will always hve enough money to pay our bills.
4) It gives us a real path to pay down the considerable debt we have built up over the years. Investors and other countries can see our plan and have confidence in us. That will bring more investment, and more jobs, to our shores. This is how economics works. Anyone who tells you differently is fooling you to get your vote.
Even a talking chimp could win with those poll numbers and those very simple yet very effective talking points. It does require an expenditure of will and a little bit of political capital, but surely the Republicans can afford both for the good of the nation (and a potential landslide victory in 2012). They have only to summon a small amount of courage. So far, they’ve not been willing to do that, but perhaps we can persuade them to try. There will be no better time than now. The numbers are on our side. I say we try.
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