rasmussen reports (3)

 

Politicians Need to Listen

to the Voters NOW!

 

      Despite adding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending laws and Obamacare (a massive new entitlement program) in 2010, Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat-controlled House of Representatives didn’t bother to pass a budget last year.  Now Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, another Democrat, have decided that despite the results of November’s election, the only budget concerns that matter today (spend, spend, spend!) are theirs.   Taxpaying voters, meanwhile according to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey say, “A pox on both of your houses, shut down the government, until agreement on substantial CUTS*** is reached.” 

      While the two parties haggle, 58% of voters would rather see a partial shutdown of the federal government rather than maintaining spending at current levels ($3.7 TRillion in the Obama budget) according to the ever accurate Rasmussen Reports. Only 33% of likely voters told Rasmussen they’d prefer to see government spending continue at present levels rather than shutting down the government.   Opinions fell upon partisan lines with 58% of Democrats opting for maintaining spending levels; contradicted by 80% of Republicans and 59% of Independents who thought partial shutdown until agreement on cuts was the better idea. Overall just 6% of voters support more spending while 61% say cuts are in order. 

      The public seems more clear-thinking on fiscal matters than our elected representatives according to numerous Rasmussen polls. The majority of voters for years have said that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.   Of all Mr. Obama’s promises casually-made and super-casually-unfulfilled, voters have consistently rated “cutting the federal deficit by half  by the end of his first term” as the most important promise that nominee Obama made. Today survey after survey confirms that few voters expect he’ll keep it.  

      Mr. Obama’s present $3.7 TRillion budget will see government spending increased taking it over $4 TRillion very soon unless some drastic cuts and changes to the Washington modus operandi are quickly made. Who’s going to make the hard decisions?   70% of voters believe that the voting public is more willing to make the hard choices necessary to reduce federal spending than our politicians are.   66% of polled voters say that the Democratic Party is NOT interested in cutting spending; and 49% say Republicans don’t go far enough with the spending cuts they’re seeking. These voter opinions on government spending have held very consistent since late 2005. The survey-meister himself, Scott Rasmussen observed in his 2010 book In Search of Self-Governance that . . . .

 

                     "The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians(and power brokers) who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century." Rasmussen added that “The American people don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or the center. They want to govern themselves.”

 

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery

Rajjpuut
 
 
*** NOTE:  just before this blog was completed, two huge stories popped up 1)  the House had just overwhelmingly agreed upon $4 Billion in spending cuts with 104 Democratic Reps siding with Speaker John Boehner as part of a CR (continuing resolution) to fund the federal government for two more weeks.  $2 Billion in cuts per week is a good but not great precedent.  Every time a new CR is created a $2 or $3 Billion cut per week of extension would be a phenomenal idea.  2) The General Accounting Office, one of the few government oversight agencies worth its salt, announced that in reviewing  some (but not all) the discretionary budget they found between $200-$250 Billion in overlap, duplication of services and conflict between U.S. government agencies.  For example fifteen different agencies look at food safety; ninety-two different agencies are assigned to educational improvement; etc.    One shudders in ecstasy to think how much more the GAO might find a) in the discretionary budgets and then b) in the entitlements and defense spending
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Americans Now Learning Real History,

Might NOT Have to Repeat Ill-Effects
 

A recent Rasmussen Reports Survey seems to show that Americans are starting to understand that the country was NOT rescued from the Great Depression by government spending and government policies (a.k.a. interference in the free markets), but rather that the government actually cost the nation millions of  jobs, intensified a normal recession with its increased spending, creating and lengthening the depression and eventually turning it into the “Great Depression.” The lesson, however, is not necessarily transferring into a greater understanding of today’s economics . . . .

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/february_2011/43_say_government_policy_mistakes_created_great_depression_of_1930s_26_disagree

 

According to the Rasmussen survey, 43% now say that government policy mistakes created the Great Depression of the ‘30s; while only 26% disagree and 31% say they are unsure. Americans, today however, are still greatly confused about the cause of the financial meltdown which, they think, began about October, 2007. More on that later . . . .

Despite the Rasmussen poll results, thanks to two and a half generations of revisionist history ,today far too many Americans still believe that Herbert Hoover was  a) a conservative rather than a progressive  b) that greedy Wall Street created the Great Depression c) that Hoover’s administration spent almost nothing fighting the economic problems d) that government spending can create jobs in the private sector e) that in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned for president against Hoover’s “conservativism” f) that FDR did virtually everything entirely different than Hoover and g) that FDR saved the country from the Great Depression. Let’s quickly put those lies to rest before dealing with today’s situation, eh?

Since progressivism (we must ‘progress’ beyond the out-dated and seriously flawed U.S. Constitution if we are ever to make ‘progress’ toward an earthly socialist or even Marxist Utopia) first became a serious undercurrent in American Politics in the 1890’s only once in the following 120 years has a serious economic downturn been handled by pure conservative restraint . . . and no, Ronald Reagan was NOT president when that happened (Reagan actually increased government spending while cutting taxes extra-severely and created some whopping deficits in the process of also creating twenty million jobs). 

Teddy Roosevelt was our first progressive president. You’ll remember that his “Bull Moose Party” was actually a third party officially known as, wait for it:  the “Progressive Party.” Teddy certainly had done a lot of questionable and presumably out-and-out unconstitutional things earlier when he was a Republican president, luckily most of them worked out pretty well for the nation.  Perhaps a Progressive president once every century or so wouldn’t be a bad thing, but certainly no more often?

Our first ultra-progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, however, was another story. Besides giving us the Federal Reserve Banking system and the income tax (still called today: “progressive” income tax), Wilson was a great propagandist who ran for a second term under the slogan “He kept us out of War” but within a month after his March, 1916 inauguration he deliberately and unnecessarily thrust us into World War I. He was the first truly big-spending president the country had ever known . . . way, way beyond the costs of the war. When his term was winding down, we were in a serious recession much worse than the recession sparked by the 1929 collapse. When he left office in March, 1921 the country was in a full-fledged depression.Curiously, those events are generally overlooked by history. People in the know, however, speak of “The Invisible Depression” or of the “Not-so-Great Depression.” Why was the Invisible Depression so invisible we don’t even know about it today?

            Two things: 1) revisionist progressive historians have done everything possible to hide this quite remarkable set of events and keep us from comparing it to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approach while creating an enormous myth of FDR as a savior and 2) these policies worked out as the launching pad for the World’s most expansive decade in free market history and gets lost in the shuffle while everyone writes books and novels and treatises about the “Roaring ‘20’s” instead. What actually happened was this:

            Warren G. Harding and his vice president, Calvin Coolidge took office in March, 1921 with a full-fledged economic contraction underway. The full story is available from the Cato Institute here:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9880

but let’s sum it up briefly.  Unemployment stood 150% higher than it was a year earlier; and GDP was only 76% of 1920 levels. Harding immediately cut government spending 49%; taxes 48%; and reduced government debt 30%.   Unlike the business-bashing that Wilson, FDR, LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) and Obama are infamous for, the Harding administration did everything it could to get government out of business’ way.   In fifteen months the country was humming again and the Invisible Depression was over. When Harding died, VP, Calvin Coolidge continued the same policies saying “the business of America is business.” 

Where did Herbert Hoover come from? Hoover was a highly respected humanitarian with an engineering background that Harding installed as his Secretary of Commerce to appease certain Eastern Republican interests.  Under both Harding and Coolidge was very ineffective. Hoover promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization" and tried to get Harding to dole out unemployment benefits to ease the pain of the high 1921 joblessness. Through the next eight years both presidents Harding and Coolidge largely ignored Hoover. 

Hoover was, in short a progressive . . .   Some people are aware of that but here’s what most don’t know. At the end of World War II, Hoover’s humanitarianism including involvement in a program akin to the Marshall Program after World War II which benefitted defeated Germany and the Bolsheviks in Russia. Hoover was so influential and well respected that the New York Times named him “One of the ten most important living Americans. Woodrow Wilson considered Hoover “my ideal successor,” Democratic leaders looked upon Hoover as a strong presidential candidate and FDR said, “There could be none finer.”    Hoover, who up to then was a-political, said that because of his childhood memories, he had no interest in being a Democrat (supposedly the only Democrat in his home city was “the town drunk) and ignored Democratic overtures.   Hoover decided he’d become a Republican and announced his candidacy for president but couldn’t get much Republican support although he did finish 2nd in the 1920 California Primary.   Despite the gridlock at the RNC Convention that year, Hoover’s name was never seriously discussed and Harding became a popular compromise candidate and he won the nomination on the 10th ballot.

After the 1920 Republican -- to appease influential Republicans on both coasts -- Harding installed Hoover as his Secretary of Commerce. Hoover’s only real contributions during his stint as Commerce Secretary were some important traffic safety (embracing motor vehicle standards, rules of the road, and urban traffic control) innovations. Nevertheless, he sought to expand the Commerce Secretary domain in every possible way. He became known for trying to take over parts of other cabinets so much so that the joke was that Hoover was "the Secretary of Commerce... and Under-Secretary of Everything Else” and Coolidge called him “Wonder-boy.” 

            After the combined Harding-Coolidge administration ended in 1928, Hoover again ran for president. As soon as he was elected in 1928, he set about making the government much bigger. His biggest moves began right after his inauguration and including implementing a wide series of farm programs and a much-criticized huge tariff increase.   A self-described “Progressive” and “Reformer,” Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by regulation and by getting government involved encouraging of volunteerism. Long before entering politics, he had denounced laissez-faire thinking.  As Commerce Secretary, he had taken an active pro-regulation stance. As President, he helped push expensive and interventionist tariff and farm subsidy bills through Congress. Hoover also increased taxes and increased the federal budget 50% (for comparison Barack Obama so far has only increased the budget 41%). It’s obvious that the real Hoover was nothing like the do-nothing Hoover that Progressive historians have insisted he was.  

Just as they did back then, the left (the progressives of today’s  Democratic Party) is now seeking to blame the current economic crisis on a conspiracy that is an inversion of the actual facts. By the way, back in 1932 FDR and his first VP-to-be called Hoover a “socialist” and promised to use Harding’s methods to regain prosperity . . . that is FDR promised to pay down debt; slash taxes; and slash government spending. Instead he actually raised the budget 100% above Hoover’s last budget; confiscated the nation’s gold and in other ways undermined the recovery so badly that only the nation’s entry into World War II nine years later got us out of the depression.

Most Americans have no idea about the facts you’ve just read and their opinions about government’s ability to create jobs in the private sector by increased spending are largely based upon the “Savior myth” of FDR as the man who heroically saved us from the Great Depression. 

When it comes to today’s problems and today’s myths the infamous Obama-car-in-the-ditch myth (blaming all our woes on conservatives and the free markets) tops them all.   The truth, however, is:

George W. Bush saw that ACORN, the progressives, big spenders, and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were deliberately pushing the car (our economy) toward a 500-foot cliff. He jumped into the front seat, grabbed the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes . . . guiding it into the nearest friendly ditch.        
   
To prove this surprising assertion for yourself: you’ll need a little education:
 
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
groupProfile.asp?grpid=7522
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/BlogPostView.aspx?id=0b1f6f49-f530-4d42-965b-7c0252850aa4
 
           That our current president was an ACORN lawyer and community organizer deliberately bankrupting our country as part of Cloward-Piven Strategy using Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA ’77) who has the gall to repeatedly tell the car-in-the-ditch story is one of the most shocking hypocrisies imaginable.

The fact that Frances Fox Piven is today still openly calling for bloody revolution and urging the poor and unemployed to “use their anger” and begin the Marxist “revolution” while the lame-stream, mainstream media is accusing the TEA Party of hate-mongering and ignoring Piven is the greatest possible journalistic malfeasance.

The fact that George W. Bush’s administration recognized the problem as early as January, 2005 and sought to repeal the horrific CRA ’77 laws but the vote was defeated. And that Bush made at least 19 separate speeches on the matter and continued to strive for elimination of CRA ’77 right up until finally in July, 2007 (30 months later) when a much weaker law was passed has not been allowed as part of the history of the meltdown even though Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in August, 2010 credited Bush with preventing an absolute collapse of our financial system and with preventing total disintegration of the housing market again reflects poorly on the so-called journalistic “profession.” The “watchdogs of the Republic” have turned on us . . . this is the biggest story of the last half of the 20th and of the first decade of the 21st Century and naturally, it’ll never be reported by the present generation of mainstream journalists . . . .

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

           

 
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Obama’s cavalier attitude toward increasing taxes and government spending and government control; deficits, national debt and unfunded liabilities on the one hand . . . and toward violating both the letter and the spirit of the U.S. Constitution on the other hand . . . are in a nutshell, the single biggest uniter of the mainstream against him.
Americans Believe Country
on the Wrong Track

When 67% of likely American voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction, you’d expect a lot of agreement on the question. Only two in every seven voters (28%) believe the country is heading the right way, but . . . . that humble statistic includes 53% of Democrats; 73% of the political** class; and 64% of Blacks who assert that the nation is indeed headed in the right direction.^^

Opposing that idea are 91% of Republicans; 73% of unaffiliated voters; 82% of mainstream** voters; and 70% of all non-black ethnicities who feel the country is headed along the wrong path. This data, taken from Rasmussen Reports recent polling . . . is a disappointment for Obama administration officials. “We don’t watch polls,” says Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary . . . an obvious lie contradicted by hundreds of other things Mr. Gibbs has said in the last nineteen months.
The single key comparison is this: 82% of mainstream voters say the country is on the wrong path while 73% of the political class aver we’re heading in the right direction. That amounts to a difference of 165% in evaluating the present situation in America: that is a monumental gulf. Our politicians and those who approve of the work of our politicians are presumably further apart today then the colonists and Great Britain’s leaders were in 1775. In comparison the difference between the Republicans (-91%) and Democrats (+53%) is great but just 144%; and the perception difference between Blacks (+64%) and other ethnicities (-70%) is a mere 134%;
Leftist blogsites have gone berserk since the new poll data was published by Rasmussen. Their spin? Some accuse Rasmussen (the most accurate pollster over the last eight years) of running a biased survey. Others say White male voters are expressing “racism.” They deny that women or Hispanics or Blacks or the young (the four key elements of the “president’s base”) are supporting the president less.
The left seem to be in absolute denial that rational people could somehow disapprove of the president’s job performance. Promising 8% maximum unemployment if the Obama Stimulus package were passed is a huge reason voters believe the country is heading down the wrong path, where, they ask, are the jobs? Recently one of Obama’s chief economic advisors quit in arguments over extending the Bush tax cuts across the board. No serious economists are recommending any kind of tax increase (and, though Obama denies it, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire even on one class of high-earners is, indeed, a tax increase) in the midst of a recession. One Obama strategist and pollster has openly questioned the president’s, the administration’s, the Democrats’ and the left’s tendency to denounce all dissenters from 100% approval of the president as “racists” saying that while this might have worked initially, it’s hurting the president across broad classes of voters.
The brunt of all these “racism” accusations, of course, is the so-called astro-turf (not a real grass-root movement according to Pelosi, Reid, Obama and Gibbs) TEA Party movement. Clearly, the TEA Party is the fastest growing and most active dynamic in America today. And what does the TEA Party movement object to in Barack Obama’s leadership that gets them repeatedly branded “racists?” Why does the TEA Party believe we’re going the wrong way?
1) Obama’s elitism (no business people or practical people are part of the inner circle at the White House) and surrounding himself with virtually nothing but academicians and lawyers.
2) Obama’s socialism (55% of Americans in a recent poll, said “socialist” was the right descriptor for the president) as indicated by takeovers of virtually 68% of the American economy and financial industries.
3) Obama’s radicalism as reflected in the make-up of his 38 czars and the white house staff consisting of so many radicals from the 60’s and 70’s and self-admitted communists.
4) Obama’s ineptitude in solving problems in jobs or the economy.
5) Obama’s refusal to listen to public opinion on matters like Obamacare and the borders.
6) Obama’s foolish stances on radical Islamic terrorism and seeming denial of the facts of a pretty simple matter seems to be endangering the country. "Man-caused disasters don't cut it, Mr. President."
7) Obama’s ignoring of our long-time allies and new coziness with our long-time enemies; and especially his “apology-tour.”
8) Obama’s cavalier attitude toward increasing taxes, government spending and government control; deficits, national debt and unfunded liabilities on the one hand . . . and toward violating both the letter and the spirit of the U.S. Constitution on the other hand . . . are in a nutshell, the single biggest uniter of the mainstream against him$$.
9) Obama’s redistributionist policies.
10) Obama’s fundamental transformation of America is NOT the change they hoped for when he was elected.
11) And, yes, it’s possible that up to 5% of the TEA Party actually are racists (though Rajjpuut has never seen even one such indication) who object to Obama’s color. However, while only 4% of Blacks voted for Mc Cain almost 48% of Whites voted for Obama (more than Kerry or Gore got) . . . so 97% of TEA Partiers really DO object to is being called “racists” by so many reverse-racists and the entire left-wing of the Democrats.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
^^By the way, 82% of Blacks approve of the job Barack Obama’s doing while only 36% of White Americans do so . . . an incredible 46% perceptual divide by race (53% of Hispanics approve of Obama’s job performance).
** According to recent Rasmussen analysis 65% of the country now align with the mainstream and only 4% now align with the political class. If “leaners” are accounted for, 81% prefer a mainstream view and 12% see things much closer to the political class’ viewpoint.
Rasmussen has a measurable definition of the terms “mainstream” and “political class.” The numbers are arrived at by asking three questions, (the mainstream answer is underlined):
1. Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?
2. Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group? Yes!
3. Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors? Yes!
To create the Rasmussen scale, each response earns a plus 1 for the mainstream answer, a minus 1 for the political class answer, and a 0 for not sure.
Those who score 2 or higher are considered a part of the Mainstream. Those who score -2 or lower are considered to be aligned with the Political Class. Those who score +1 or -1 are considered leaners in one direction or the other.
In practical terms, if someone is classified with the Mainstream, they agree with the mainstream view on at least two of the three questions and don’t agree with the Political Class on any.
After years of conducting these polls, Scott Rasmussen says, it’s his conclusion that Americans do NOT want to be governed from the left; do NOT want to be governed from the right; do NOT want to be governed from the midde; but rather “want to govern themselves.”
A Rajjpuut comment here: 83% of the political class are Democrats 15% are Independents or Unaffiliateds and just 2% are Republicans. In comparison, the makeup of the mainstream group is roughly 62% Republicans, 24% Independents and about 14% Democrats.
$$ In a liberal think-tank poll about ten days back, 55% of the voters said that "socialist" was an accurate descriptor for Barack Obama. It has taken 2.5 years for the populace to come to that opinion because the mainstream media (MSM) have protected and coddled Barack Obama and never properly vetted him, a courtesy that has never before been shown to any major American candidate. Rajjpuut knew early in 2008 that Barack Obama was a communist; that his mother Stanley Ann Dunham and grandfather Stanley Armour Dunham who raised him were communists; that his mentor, the poet Frank Marshall Davis was a communist; and that his Kenyan birthfather was such an abject and vocal communist, he could not hold a job in socialist Kenya. These are all facts the liberal MSM could have easily and should have uncovered for America's voters . . . . even Obama's first book "Dreams from My Father" was never vetted. The obvious question is "What were the dreams from Barak (no 'c') Hussein Obama, Sr.?" Here's the answer . . . .
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM41_eastafrica.html
from a magazine essay written when his son was about four years old. 100% taxation, confiscation of private land, forced communal farming, redistribution of wealth from the White and Asian Kenyans to the Black Kenyans, confiscation of foreign businesses, total economic planning in the hands of government, etc. etc. . . . these were the dreams from Barack, Jr.'s father . . . .

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