The Healthcare Is Too Damned High
by digby
More deficit fever from the new CNN poll:
Forty-nine percent of people questioned in the poll say the tax cuts should be extended for families making less than $250,000 a year, with another 15 percent saying the cuts should not be extended for anyone. That leaves 35 percent who favor an extension of the tax cuts for all Americans regardless of how much money they make…
“Among the general public, Republicans and Democrats agree that the tax cuts should be extended, but they differ on who should benefit,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Two-thirds of Democrats think that the tax cuts should be limited to families making less than $250,000. Fifty percent of Republicans think the tax cuts should be extended regardless of income.”
So, it’s clear that if the Democrat capitulate on this, it will prove that they are servants of the top 2% and the Tea Party. That’s our new governing coalition regardless of the fact that only the House is in GOP hands. It’s a very instructive number.
But here’s where movement conservatism’s incoherence really pays off for the right:
The survey also indicates that 56 percent say that tax cuts and deficit reduction can be accomplished at the same time, with just over four in ten saying they disagree.
“Deficit reduction is important to many legislators, but most Americans probably think it should not stand in the way of lower taxes,” adds Holland.
I’m guessing that a fair number of those 56% believe that “deficit” is a code word for “spending on stuff I don’t like”, they’ve heard a lot of Very Serious People saying for years that if you lower taxes it means the government gets more revenue or they have bought into the notion that rich people are the “producers” and they can’t create any jobs if they have to pay personal income tax. And I think a lot of people have just come to believe the word “deficit” stands for bad economy and unemployment, another triumph of right wing messaging because as we know, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” — they just want to cut taxes and the safety net.
And then there’s this one:
Another battle on Capitol Hill concerns the “don’t ask, don’t tell”law, which bans openly gay troops for serving in the military. A possible vote on repealing the measure is being debated by lawmakers.
According to the poll, more than seven in ten Americans think that people who are openly gay or lesbian should be allowed to serve in the military, with 23 percent opposed.
If the Tea Party isn’t running the country there is no reason that this shouldn’t pass. Health care repeal too:
Health care is unlikely to re-emerge while the Democrats control both sides of Capitol Hill, but it will probably do so next year, when the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives and reduce the Democrats’ majority in the Senate.
The poll indicates the public continues to be split right down the middle on whether the health care bill passed into law earlier this year should be repealed: Forty-nine percent say it should; 48 percent say no. Of that 48 percent, 24 percent think that Congress should make additional changes to increase the government’s involvement in the nation’s health care system; 24 percent just want to leave well enough alone.
If there’s an even split, with the Democrats holding one House of congress and the presidency, it shouldn’t even make it on to the agenda right now because presumably the president would veto any bill that didn’t at least maintain the status quo. We’ll see how that goes over the next two years. If it becomes a huge battle, we’ll know the Tea Party is in the driver’s seat.
These three issues are only on the agenda because about 30% of the country — the far right — are putting it there. These are, by the way, the same people who insisted that Obama, who won with an outright majority and a mandate, was governing “against the will of the people” for the past two years.
The Tea Party believes that they represent a majority of the people in America. And from what I can gather, despite the polling, the Villagers all believe it to. I’m guessing it’s because they look like what these Villagers see as being Real Americans as opposed to the scruffy coalition of lefty white urban dwellers, African Americans and Hispanics, hipsters and small town/suburban liberals who go against the grain. That coalition wasn’t featured in the Leave It To Beaver imaginations of TV shows of the past, so it can’t be considered the true representation of the majority. Except it is.
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