Posted on 03/12/2013 7:07:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It goes by many names --- crying wolf, Chicken Little, or just plain hyperbole. What happens to a politician who insists that the world will end unless his policies are implemented, only to have the globe keep on turning as usual with little impact? Barack Obama may be finding out, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll (via Jim Geraghty):
The budget cuts in Washington have not hit home in America, at least not yet.
A plurality of Americans think federal spending cuts will have no effect at all on them or their families, according to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll. At the same time, as many Americans think the cuts will have no effect or a positive effect on the overall economy as think the cuts will hurt the economy, the survey found. ....
President Barack Obama has not yet convinced the majority that the cuts will be bad for them and their country as he has tried. He has hoped the country would rise up in anger at the spending cuts and force Republicans to agree to an alternative plan to curb the deficit that includes tax increases and fewer spending cuts.
Of course — that’s always the reason for hyperbole and demagoguery. It’s to incite people outside of rationality into action. The only real way to combat that strategy is to call its bluff, and that’s what Republicans did with the sequester. Despite the fact that the defense cuts were widely despised by the GOP (and not just the GOP), Republicans swallowed them to prove a point, which is that Obama and his Cabinet lied about the impact of what amounts to a 2.3% reduction in federal spending that has grown by nearly 15 times that amount since 2007.
Now that the world hasn’t ended because we didn’t raise taxes rather than cut spending, voters aren’t in much of a mood to try Obama’s preferred policy:
Generally, voters by 53-37 prefer to reduce the deficits by mostly cutting government programs and services rather than mostly by raising taxes. Working Americans just had a tax increase in January when Obama and the Congress decided to let a temporary cut in the payroll tax for Social Security expire.
“Voters are not in a mood to increase taxes,” said Miringoff.
I suppose it’s a Sisyphean task to remind McClatchy and Marist that the payroll-tax holiday was always supposed to be temporary, and that at least theoretically it reduced contributions to taxpayers’ own benefits, but that’s only theoretical. The PTH was a bad idea from start to finish, whose inception didn’t stimulate growth, whose expiration didn’t reduce growth, and which didn’t even start to address the long-term problems in either the tax code or the structure of entitlement programs.
On that point, though, the news isn’t all good for budget-cutters:
-by 60-33 they prefer to raise taxes than cut Social Security;
-by 57-36 they prefer to raise taxes than cut Medicare; …
-by 50-42 they prefer to raise taxes than cut Medicaid.
Higher taxes won’t keep those programs afloat, but politically it might be impossible to fix them without trading something in revenues. If the GOP can convince Democrats to overhaul the tax systems at the same time Congress addresses entitlement structure, everyone can get a win — but that’s going to take a lot of convincing on both sides of the aisle. The best news is that the bad reviews and ticket sales for Nightmare on Sequester Street should be enough to ensure we won’t get a sequel in the near future.
There’s that old, and wise, saying about “going to the well too often ....”
Will people see that the news media as well as Obama cried wolf once again?
the news media did it with the “fiscal cliff”, sequester, global warming, bp oil “catastrophe” ( where is that now?),
mass shooters are a threat etc etc. etc. etc.
when will people see the news media as well as Obama, and democrats are the problem ? all part of the democrat party
If you are still waiting for your tax refund, check the status. Mysterious “delays” are afoot. Son of Sequester II about to hit any day methinks.
What do you say to this news...
IRS: Sequester Won’t Delay Tax Refunds, Maybe Fewer Audits
EXCERPT:
The Internal Revenue Service says those across-the-board automatic spending cuts will not delay processing of individual income tax refunds, and may mean fewer audits.
The agency has warned its more than 100,000 employees to expect furloughs of one day per pay period — but not until this summer, after tax filing season ends.
“At this point, we expect that every one of us would take no more than one furlough day per pay period… for a total of between five to seven furlough days,” IRS Commissioner Steven Miller wrote to staff in a memo obtained by ABC News.
I truly believe that this admin is going to go too far.
At one point I thought it would be the so-called BEER SUMMIT.
Then Romney got elected AND I decided I was wrong. That Obama could get away with anything.
For now I truly believe that with all his caturwalling he really did go to.far.
Cancelling WH tours was the ham-handed icing on the cake.
RE: Cancelling WH tours was the ham-handed icing on the cake.
Is he planning to cancel his golf games where he flies air force one and pays Tiger Wood’s instructor a thousand bucks an hour for lessons?
What is this tax refund you speak of? Is it something I missed over the last 30 tax seasons? Tell me more...
Obama keeps claiming he has cut the deficit by $2.5 trillion. Someone should ask him, If a $44 million reduction creates such chaos, how is it that his alleged $2.5 trillion cut went entirely unnoticed?
Yeah, I want one too!
I’m just excited that I don’t have to pay until April 15th because of the form delays.
I say whatever Obama is saying in press releases is one thing, and what my accountant is seeing is something altogether different.
EITC recipients......approved!
Young college-aged kiddies filing 1040EZ.....approved!
Gainfully employed registered Republicans...we’ll get back to you.
I made the mistake of investing in myself and getting better jobs and making more money. Sometimes I wonder was it worth it?
As soon as he began pivoting from finger pointing to we need to all come together for compromise, I knew his polls showed he had hurt himself. So, he just makes up lies in a different direction i.e. we need to compromise. The end result will be he will still blame everyone, except himself, when nothing gets done the way he wants it done except this time he will point to the house and say they sent up another ridicules budget when I tried to meet them in the middle! Notice, he NEVER makes his positions known on any specific item. Bonehead actually nailed it one time when he said negotiating with his excellency was like trying to nail jello to the wall.
Obama keeps claiming he has cut the deficit by $2.5 trillion. Someone should ask him, If a $44 million reduction creates such chaos, how is it that his alleged $2.5 trillion cut went entirely unnoticed?
Great point.
Answer as to why.... It would expose him for the fool he is / they are.
Lets do another sequester cut. And triple it.
Not to be over-smug about it, but I called exactly this. The over-hyped "doomsday" predictions were a massive bluff intended to force the Republicans into folding. And why not? Such tactics have worked remarkably well in the past.
But as the GOP actually stood firm for a change, the rhetoric was ratcheted up to ridiculous levels, and the risk to the left, as I said, was that when the dire consequences didn't actually happen, it was going to backfire on them big-time.
So why embark on such a risky move? They had no choice. The entire leftist philosophy was at risk -- if government could be "cut" at all without the sky falling, then all of their bluster for decades will be shown to be a lie. They had to either stop the sequester or make it appear as a disaster to be blamed on the GOP. They failed at both, but they're still trying on the latter.
Caught me at a good time. At the puter, not the Kindle. Got a keyboard.
Like I said, I truly believed that....well the best expression for now...tell me if you agree...is Obama has “jumped the shark”.
Cause while we know what he does, now many more know and soon more will know.
Anybody got kids knows this behavior, blame everybody else.
And soon, I do believe though I though the end was the last election, but soon, it won’t work anymore.
We shall see.
If you are waiting on a tax “refund” you are a fool, because you spent the year giving the IRS an interest-free loan.
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