Support for Spain's PM falls sharply after new austerity steps

Reuters ^ | Sun Jul 29, 2012 8:42am EDT | (Reporting by Julien Toyer; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

[Olog-hai]

Support for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy fell sharply in July after his government announced a new round of deep spending cuts and tax hikes to fight the sovereign debt crisis, an opinion poll showed on Sunday. …

Since Rajoy won the elections by a landslide last year, Spain has become the new front line of the 2½-year debt crisis, and the government has implemented several packages of structural reforms and austerity measures, the latest worth €65 billion ($80.4 billion) until 2014. …

While 74 percent of the 1,000 people interviewed say they have a negative view of the government, the Socialist opposition, which after eight years in power is seen as bearing a huge responsibility in the crisis, is not seen as gaining from the PP's fall. …

[the invisib1e hand]

Austerity bites.

[jettester]

There is a warning here for us Conservatives as well: too many years of eating at the trough of Government excess causes the freeloaders to become brain-dead and violent when you try and take their freebies away from them.

[Olog-hai]

That’s the disastrous part of a social market economy. The liberals in DC have been incorporating too much of that into our formerly free market, and the same thing is happening, of course. Note how in Europe they’re trying to raise taxes in the vain hope of keeping their status quo, though . . . that’ll make it worse.

[jettester]

I am constantly amazed (though I probably shouldn't) here in Illinois on how “taken-for granted” the attitudes are when getting services from the state or Feds. Especially from those I would expect to have a differing idea or thought process. The dependency attitudes are deeply rooted in our cultural psyche that it almost feels like being around a drug addict on withdrawls when cuts are being debated.

[ronnie raygun]

Oh how are enemies “within” would love to have us in this senario. Love him or hate him a vote for Romney is a small step on our way back to sanity. He will be watch closley and have more to be concerend with, with us then with the rats and thier dependents. Consider Romney as the first chemo treatment.

[allendale]

Ah the inherent flaw of Athenian type democracy. What is necessary is not politically popular and hence not possible. Europe will collapse under unsustainable debt as its leaders make a futile attempt to continue the consumption of more than they produce.

[3Fingas]

Agreed. People talk a good game about cutting spending.
If someone actually did that here, he or she would be just as unpopular as the current Spanish Prime Minister.

No, I don’t see anyone actually doing that here. A sizable chunk of the American public, if not the majority, would vote them out of office. All you have to do is look at the third rail of politics — social security. That program and so many others should be reformed and gradually shifted to privately, held individual retirement accounts. However, anybody proposing those measures would surely lose in an election. The political parties are just going to keep on using a visa card until our line of credit dries up — basically, playing musical chairs hoping to catch a seat before the music stops.

[Olog-hai]

They don’t practice Athenian democracy over in most European states, though. The vast majority of national governments are either constitutional monarchies with a parliamentary system (such as Spain) or Weimar-style so-called “republics” that copy the monarchic parliamentary system but replace the monarch with an elected president. The EU’s central government is another animal entirely: it’s a copy of the USSR’s government, with the only significant difference being the existence of a multi-party system rather than single-party. (And no, the “citizens’ initiative” is not really an example of Athenian democracy, insofar as the European Commission is not obliged to make any proposal into a bill of law.)

The welfare state that the social market economy imposes on the 27 member states of the EU (per Article 3 paragraph 3 of the Treaty of Lisbon, Treaty on European Union section) will certainly be a heavy load to tote; but the only reason that this crisis (it’s artificial) is being prolonged is to get member states to give up more sovereignty to the central government. Rajoy even voiced his support for this increased centralization back in June. (Not very right-wing of him, is it?)

[livius]

I was just in Spain. The Spanish view is that there is some huge pot of money out there that the “rich” are just hiding from them, and that it is the government’s responsibility to go get it.

Also, the Spanish are famous for pirating software and intellectual property, never paying their own taxes (either income or sales tax) and maintaining a thriving black market that supplements their unemployment benefits.

And I actually love the country! But I have to admit that they have a problem.

[GOPJ]

It’s gonna get worse for them...

[the invisib1e hand]

I should have said, “austerity happens,” because we’ve been going through it since 2008.