Voters dislike “government,” like what it does
Last year, U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) shared a story from one of his town hall meetings. A constituent stood to demand that Congress keep “government out of my Medicare.” Inglis reminded the constituent that government created and runs Medicare, a truth-telling affront which may help explain why Inglis was defeated by a rightwing tea-party type in the Republican primary a few months ago.
In any event, the constituent’s comment illustrates something I’ve long believed: “government” is just a word for those things voters don’t like. A strong “anti-government” sentiment doesn’t really illustrate that voters want to cut those government programs which benefit them. Alaska, which prides itself on its frontier independence, is the nation’s biggest welfare state.
Now, a new poll has shown just how contradictory voter attitudes are about the role of government and just how difficult it will be for Congress to make significant cuts to government spending. From the WaPo:
A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University shows that most Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare “very important.” They want Washington to be involved in schools and to help reduce poverty. Nearly half want the government to maintain a role in regulating health care.
The study suggests that come January, politicians in both parties will confront a challenging and sometimes contradictory reality about what Americans really think about their government. Although Republicans, and many Democrats, have tried to demonize Washington, they must contend with the fact that most major government programs remain enormously popular, including some that politicians have singled out for stiff criticism. . .
Even as Americans generally hold Washington in low regard, they still like much of the work it does. Support for government action on such issues as national defense, health care and fighting poverty remains high, in some cases just where it was a decade ago.Nearly six in 10 say they want their congressional representatives to fight for additional government spending in their districts to spur job creation; fewer (39 percent) want their member of Congress to cut spending, even if that means not as many local jobs. This is a turnabout from September 1994, when 53 percent said they wanted their representative to battle against spending and 42 percent were on the other side.
This oughtta be interesting.
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315 comments Add your comment
kayaker 71
October 11th, 2010
2:46 pm
John,
Maybe you would be an ethical politician. Source of statistics, Politico and Open Secrets.org. We all know that politicians lie no make what party. But to openly accuse someone of something this important without proof is really a stretch. Again, even the NYT and Washington Post criticized the WH for their actions.
AmVet
October 11th, 2010
2:50 pm
The facts are that the US Chamber of Commerce is little more than water carriers for the Republican Party and their imperious pals on Wall Street.
They pretend to represent small businesses in America, but take a guess who is on the board of directors?
Fat cats from Cousins Properties, Edward Jones, Caterpillar, Alcoa, Dow Chemical, Charles Schwab, AT&T, and Pfizer.
They are anti-environmental, pro-offshore drilling, pro-ANWR drilling, anti-minimum wage, anti-union, pro-corporate globalization/free trade and anti-campaign finance reform.
It spent $91.7 million on lobbying in 2008, and $144.5 million in 2009, up from $18.7 million in 2000. The Chamber’s lobbying expenditures in 2009 were five times as high as the next highest spender: Exxon Mobil, at $27.4 million. The Chamber had more than 150 lobbyists from 25 different firms working on its behalf in 2009. The major issues that it advocated on were in the categories of torts, government issues, finance, banking and taxes.
In the 2008 election cycle, aggressive ads paid for by the USCC attacked a number of Democratic congressional candidates (such as Minnesota’s DFL Senate candidate Al Franken) and supported a number of Republican candidates including John Sununu, Gordon Smith, Roger Wicker, Saxby Chambliss and Elizabeth Dole.
During the 2010 campaign cycle, the chamber said it planned to directly spend $75 million, reported to be mostly aimed at defeating Democrats. That year, the Chamber’s PAC also gave $29,000 (89%) to Republican candidates and $3,500 (11%) to Democratic candidates.
And to show you just how awful their anti-worker, pro-corporation mentality is the motto of the Dunwoody Chamber of Commerce is, “Businesses are citizens too!”.
No wonder we the people are well and royally screwed…
John
October 11th, 2010
3:02 pm
@kayaker 71
“But to openly accuse someone of something this important without proof is really a stretch. ”
The Chamber of Commerce admits it takes in money from foreign corporations and since it as a 501(c)(6) organization under tax law, it doesn’t have to disclose its donors. The Chamber of Commerce claims to have internal controls to prevent any foreign money being used in illegal ways; however, the Chamber will not even disclose what those internal controls are. So the question becomes what are these internal controls and are these controls sufficient to ensure foreign money is not being used.
JKL2
October 11th, 2010
3:07 pm
angry-
26 yrs and wearing a lovely green pixalated ribstop outfit as we speak. I guess you know where to put that broad brush now. At least Cheney wasn’t protesting like the Clintons.
-not tell me or my wife or my daughter what they can or should do with their bodies. Unlike your newscasters who must be fully clothed and hidden behind desks…maybe only men should be newscasters?
-criticize or snoop on my neighbors. Obama has taken the Patriot Act well past anything the Republicans thought of in your worst nightmares. Where’s all the outrage?
-I believe the number one responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. Border protection should be a priority then. Instead our attourney general is trying to sue a state for protecting it’s own border.
Maybe some post-stress counseling would do you some good. George W had his faults in being a RINO and trying to appease the Demwits. Now we are all supposed to believe things are getting better because the apologizer in chief is expanding the worst programs Bush had to offer. Bill Mauher is a comedian like Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert. Maybe you should trying to get your news from a more credible source instead of complaining about Gretchen’s legs.
TGT
October 11th, 2010
3:11 pm
What happened to the new thread?
Did someone not approve of Ms. Tucker’s name calling, or did she just not want to discuss real science and scientists?
JKL2
October 11th, 2010
3:17 pm
AmVet- their imperious pals on Wall Street
Goldman Sachs is a Democrat organization. Might want to be careful who you are throwing stones at. I gurarentee nobody on capital hill wants full disclosure.
-pro-offshore drilling. Good thing Mexico is picking up our slack by drilling in the Gulf for us. –pro-ANWR drilling. Drill, Baby, Drill!!! We all know how terrible that pipeline has been for the ecology. Wouldn’t want to drill on .00002% of an uninhabited ice cube to find some oil. How’s that Dept of Energy working out for you? You Know, the one Carter created to end our dependance on foreign oil.
kayaker 71
October 11th, 2010
3:26 pm
In the 2008 campaign, 88% of political contributions made by TV Network Execs, writers, reporters, etc were made to the Democratic party. 1160 employees gave 1,020,816 dollars to the Democrats, 193 employees gave 142,863 dollars to the Republicans. Bias? Nah!!
AmVet
October 11th, 2010
3:45 pm
Don’t you mean Spill, Baby Spill?
The DEA? Pretty much the same as the MMS, that was bribed by and worked FOR BP.
How well did that needless, utterly preventable DeepWater Horizon debacle work out for you?
On second thought, why would you care that they took insane short cuts and blatantly disregarded basic safety measures so as to make a few more pieces of silver?
Let me rephrase, how well did that work out for those eleven families and the millions of impacted people along the Gulf of Mexico?
You will NEVER stop shucking and grinning for them, all simply because you irrationally hate Uncle Sam. No matter that these banksters, casino capitalists and innumerable white collar criminals brought this greatest of nations to within an eyelash of *complete* ruin barely twenty months ago.
All because of a “sustained orgy of greed and reckless behavior”. And a complicit government, funded by mountains of dirty corporate money, that was paid to look the other way.
And to this day, look around cowboy. The aftermath is devastating. Millions of American families who worked hard, played by the rules and trusted these Titans of Malfeasance and Criminal Negligence, who hide behind that giant American flag on Wall Street are now back to square one. No jobs, no careers, no industries and no real opportunities, unless they move to India.
So don’t b*tch about anything. You cons have gotten exactly what you’ve worked thirty years for. Multi-nationals with no allegiance to this country, who operate with near total impunity, and virtually nobody keeping an eye on them. No matter how much death and destruction they cause. Bush made sure that he took the federal cops off of the beat early in his first administration. And lordknows he was not the first POTUS to help implement the corporate destruction of capitalism.
Just as you advocated and still do – Let the free market police itself.
Again I ask you, how has that letting the foxes guard the American hen house worked out for us?
You want the answer? (Of course not.)
A massive, decades long corporate crime wave that would take pages and pages to even begin documenting. And you pro-crime, fiscally irresponsible non-conservative conservatives give ALL of it a free pass. Hell you don’t even have the _____ to acknowledge it!
So again I say we the people are well and royally screwed and our blood-soaked and sacred sovereignty has been sold off to the highest bidder – no matter if on Wall Street or in Beijing.
The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace, and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor and prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated into a few hands and the republic is destroyed. ~(Mis?)Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, 1865
But whoever wrote is was a genius…
Kamchak
October 11th, 2010
4:31 pm
Tray
October 11th, 2010
11:16 am
Yes, i got mute and moot incorrect…can anyone correct this: Obama is a
nievenaive, inexperienced, coward of a leader that doesn’t know his head from his arse.Correct that! lol
Like shooting fish in a barrel
CYNT U MUST KEEP UR JOB
October 11th, 2010
4:37 pm
JUST LIKE THE EVIL REDNECKS THAT SAID MAX CLELAND WAS A TERRORIST!
POT MEET KETTLE!
ODDOWL
October 12th, 2010
3:54 am
The Federal Government is the agency of last resort. The Government steps in when the private sector fail or they provide and administer services that are not provided by the private sector. The American people didn’t have social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, veterans medical care and pensions etc, etc, etc. Has anyone learned about “Hoovervilles” tent cities erected near the White House by WW- l veterans who demanded pensions from the Governement. Hoover ordered the military to attack the veterans, drive them out of Wash. and dismantle the tent cities. The naive, ignorant, gullible people have been brainwashed and indoctrinated by the extreme right wing Republican Tea Party politicians with hatred and distrust of the Governement, Hatred of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, hatred of America. The Republican Tea Party politicians are the problem. If we get rid the Republican Tea Party politicians, we can get rid of the problem.
Charles
October 12th, 2010
5:28 am
The masses are asses.
Rick H.
October 12th, 2010
8:25 am
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Rick
October 12th, 2010
9:54 am
Sure, socialism is very popular among the freeloaders and deadbeats who don’t care about freedom, as long as they get the handouts. They have no responsibilities, face no consequences for their irresponsibility. They don’t have to pay taxes, meet a payroll, raise a family. Nanny government takes care of all that for them. They should have their own country, take their government with them, and let taxpayers have their own country with a limited government that does what it’s supposed to do, and only what it’s supposed to do: protect our freedom.
mickeymat
October 12th, 2010
10:35 am
When Cynthia Tucker “left” the AJC, some of us thought perhaps there was hope for the newspaper. But now, like Dracula she is back all too often driving a stake through the heart of a “has been” publication leaving it hanging by a thread.