Americans who talk to pollsters are a sadly confused bunch. Here’s Finding #1, from today’s New York Times:
The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled [by NYT/CBS] said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.
So, by a small margin, those polled prefer the Democratic approach to the debt-ceiling talks to the Republican. They run 50-50 on Obama’s approach. As for the Tea Party, (Finding #2), it
is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.
So Findings #1 and #2 dovetail, more or less. But now we get to the weird part—Finding #3 from the same poll:
There were signs that the repeated Republican calls for more spending cuts were resonating with the public: 44 percent of those polled said the cuts in the debt-ceiling agreement did not go far enough, 29 percent said they were about right and only 15 percent said they went too far. More than a quarter of the Democrats polled said that the cuts in the agreement did not go far enough.
So if the Tea Party supporters amount to 20 percent of the public, then those who disapprove of the Republican approach for the reason that they thought the Republicans wanted to cut too much (while not cutting any taxes) must amount to 52 percent, right?
But now here’s the kicker, Finding #4:
By a ratio of more than two to one, Americans said that creating jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts.
And also:
Sixty-three percent of those polled said that they supported raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year, as Mr. Obama has sought to do — including majorities of Democrats (80 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans (52 percent).
Now, the wording of these questions is not perfect. (It’s never perfect.) But it’s also worth noting that “Americans said that they trusted Mr. Obama to make the right decisions about the economy more than the Republicans in Congress, by 47 percent to 33 percent.”
I’ve been trying to get my mind around the ensemble of these reactions. Obama is better trusted than the Republicans. By 2-1, they think creating jobs is more important than spending cuts. By something like that, they’re for taxing the rich. And yet almost half think the cuts should have been deeper.
One possible way to reconcile all these views is to throw up your hands and conclude that vast numbers of Americans are simply (hopelessly?) inattentive, bewildered, and illogical. Don’t think I’m not tempted. Another, however, is to say that a whole lot are terribly informed. There’s a hint in this direction, but only a hint, in the reporters’ delicate phrasing: “There were signs that the repeated Republican calls for more spending cuts were resonating with the public.”
I’d put it more indelicately. These repeated calls, brazenly trumpeted by right-wing media for years, and amplified as wholly legitimate by so-called mainstream (or liberal!) media, and having come to form the normal baseline of respectable opinion about how much more important cutting the deficit now is than any stimulus, have paid off in spades. So some of the same people who think the Republicans went too far toward spending cuts also accept that spending cuts were a good idea—though not as good an idea as creating jobs. Is it that some significant number have swallowed the Laffer elixir about creating jobs by cutting spending? It wouldn’t be surprising.
A note to pollsters: The question about preferring tax cuts or creating jobs stinks, since “creating jobs” can rope liberals and Lafferites into the same category.
