Posted on 03/03/2011 11:54:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I promised you an update on this poll in the post about support for collective bargaining once the crosstabs were released. Here you go: The sample is 39D/34R/19I, including leaners, and 14 percent of respondents are union members. As Ed noted a few days ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 11.9 percent of workers are unionized, so it’s a slight oversample but within the margin of error. On the other hand, Ed pointed out that public employees comprise 17 percent of the work force; in the Journal poll, 14 percent of respondents are public employees, i.e. a slight undersample. I don’t think the collective bargaining polling data is wildly skewed.
As for the rest of the poll, the Journal is touting the following as good news for Mitch Daniels. Proof at last that the public supports a “truce” on social issues?
Huckabee leads the field as the first choice of 25 percent of Republicans (Romney is second at 21, Gingrich third at 13, and Palin fourth at 12, although she finishes second as a second choice) so there’s still some support out there for an unapologetic social con, but yeah, priorities in this election lay elsewhere. Even so — is this poll really good news for Mitch Daniels, the guy who’s ready to fight the “red menace” of our federal debt?
Read it and weep, my friends:
Seventy-six percent say Medicare cuts are at least mostly unacceptable and 77 percent say the same of Social Security — including a clear majority who say it’s totally unacceptable. Here’s a related result, asking not whether cuts are acceptable but merely whether they’re necessary. Remember, entitlement spending is by far the biggest driver of America’s astronomical debt:
The silver lining is that majorities are willing to accept various tweaks to entitlements. Cuts are a no-go, but 62 percent say they’d find it at least mostly acceptable to reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits for wealthier retirees and 56 percent would find it mostly acceptable to gradually raise the retirement age for S.S. to 69 by the year 2075. In fact, 44 percent would even find a voucher system for Medicare “mostly acceptable,” an encouraging sign insofar as it gives the Ryans, Christies, and Danielses of the world a political foothold to push reforms aggressively. The immediate problem is that there’s even more support for tax hikes than there is for entitlement reform: 81 percent find a surtax on millionaires mostly acceptable and 68 percent say the same of phasing out the Bush tax cuts for “wealthy” families. One of the left’s big complaints about the Deficit Commission proposal is that it was heavy on cuts and light on tax hikes. This poll will encourage them to escalate that argument.
One last data point: A plurality of respondents say they’ll probably vote for Obama over a Republican challenger (45/40) and a majority say they support how he’s handling the Egyptian and broader Middle East uprisings (55/30). So long as he doesn’t do or say anything to further involve America in the region, he’s probably safe. Which means that no-fly zone is less likely than ever.
“some reforms are okay”
John Q. Citizen: Uh, yeah, ones that affect everyone who’s not me.
“I can produce poll results on individual questions of 0 to 100 percent depending solely on wording.”
How do you suppose the question was phrased? “Do you support cutting entitlement programs and slowly starving babies just foto watch them die, or would you prefer to rainbows, puppy dogs, unicorns, and keeping things as they are?”
Granted, there must be some way to frame the issue so as to forestall accusations of ending the American Dream as we know it and throwing the “less fortunate” out in the street. However, the fact remains that people are uniquely stubborn on this issue. It’s called the Third Rail for a reason. Cuts For Thee But Not For Me is as powerful as any political truth, much more enduring than Throw the Bastards Out or Not In My Backyard.
The Idiocy Of The American Public
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2011-03-03 08:54
by Karl Denninger
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=181429
“…Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security “unacceptable.”…”
FromLori -Thanks so for the link to this fantastic article but where is the above shown in the poll???
“FromLori -Thanks so for the link to this fantastic article but where is the above shown in the poll???”
It’s in his story this link
“Too many people don’t want to give up their “goodies”. They want “goodies” (i.e. money earned by hard work) taken away from others so they can keep getting theirs because, by golly, they deserve it.”
Yea, if half the people on this site feel entitled to STEAL the earnings of my kids and (future) grand kids because they (collectively) REFUSED to tax themselves enough to pay for all the services that they DEMANDED from government, we are indeed doomed.
Because of their DEMANDS for this money, we are going to have a FULL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE (due to debt) and these guys will be in much worse shape than if they had been reasonable.
Specifically, they will still see their precious Social Security get WIPED OUT - this time by inflation, and they will also see their savings get wiped out the same way. Food and energy costs will go through the roof (since the dollar will be practically worthless in the world), and people really will starve here.
...but I guess that outcome is just fine to these people, as long as they can keep getting their precious Social Security checks (for a few more months).
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