The State of the Union: A Poll
What do Americans really think about Obama and his jobs plan?
"David Axelrod, President Barack Obama's senior campaign strategist, pushed back against negative media accounts surrounding the president's approval rating and said recent polling shows the majority of Americans agree with Obama's plan to create jobs."—CNN
Question: President Barack Obama is proposing a new affordable jobs plan that is supported by economists and is nothing like the plan that didn't create jobs (because of the GOP's insistence that the package not exceed a criminally meager $1 trillion) so that Americans can rebuild vital infrastructure—high-speed rail lines, Service Employees International Union membership rolls—and, have we mentioned, find jobs. Do you, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ, support this plan to invest in the future?
Yes: 99 percent. No: 🙁
Question: The president of the United States of America has proposed paying for his new stimulus plan, which you absolutely loved (see above), with the modest suggestion that trillionaires—and even a few billionaires*—do their part and give back a tiny itty little bit of the money they would probably otherwise spend on Learjets and Caligula-inspired socials to help fund investments to mitigate drastic cuts in spending that could potentially unleash tragic consequences beyond all human comprehension**. If the above weren't a false choice, would you support such a plan?
Yes: the 99 percent. No: 1 percent.
Question: In the past few weeks, a group of peaceful, definitely non-communist, and completely non-anti-Semitic protesters has been quietly gathering on Wall Street and in other once-great cities decimated by the scourge of capitalism to, like the president, object to policies that they say -- and you know -- favor the criminally rich, big banks that charge fees and "interest," bailouts***, and the political party that doesn't run the presidency or the Senate. What is your view of these wholly American protests?
Very favorable: the 99 percent.
Question: What are your impressions of the zealously anti-government tea party?
Unfavorable: 100 percent. Very, very unfavorable: 53 percent.
Question: Obstructionist Republicans have offered numerous jobs bills in the United States House of Representatives, as well as dozens of bills to rein in some of the unprecedented regulatory burden instituted by this administration, which the GOP dubiously claims has created economic uncertainty and a poor business environment. Would you support the radical "plan" to undo the thicket of regulation to help make private-sector job creation easier rather than the House's continuing to pass bill after bill that charges government with the task of creating jobs?
Answers N/A.
Internals: Ninety-eight percent of those polled identify as Democrats or leaning Democratic; 1 percent identify as Republican or leaning Republican. About 0.5 percent identify as purely independent, leaning toward neither party, and about 0.5 percent don't care. Libertarians do not exist.
*Any household making $200,000.
**The end of weatherized window subsidies.
***Does not include Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, General Motors, student loans, mortgages, solar panel companies, or the U.S. Postal Service.
David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Blaze. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
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Is his staff still driving that big giant SS looking bus around with him?
Is there nothing you libertards will not say to malign me?
I'd like to see just how different the actual poll questions were.
What makes you think these aren't the actual poll questions?
I like how they put 99% next to the answer they want so that people will follow the crowd and pick it.
No, nothing!
David, you are definitely in rare form. I LOL'D.
Whereas the libertarian plan is for government to do nothing, blame people for their joblessness, then take whatever money they have in their pockets and give it back to more deserving billionaires.
1%: Thumbs up. It is what we subsidize your little magazine for.
u r dum
My vagina hurts!
tony,
you are either clueless or a liar, and while neither is particularly attractive, it does explain why you are a Dem. There is no Libertarian plan or Repub plan or any other plan to do what you outline, and you know it.
Even honest Dems, the few remaining ones in the Senate, know the Obama plan is really no plan at all. It's why they will neither vote for it OR have Obama campaign alongside them. The divider-in-chief is doing what he always does - pitting one group of Americans against the rest. Today, it is pretending that veterans should be hired before anyone else, as if everyone else is worthless. Then, it'll be one minority group or another; after that, it'll be union folks or public sector employees. The man's agenda relies on dividing and, curiously, his appeal is strongest among the least intellectually curious, the ones who fall for talking points. Like you..
We don't want to divide and demonize! Except against democrats, liberals, union folks, public sector employees, and soldiers. They suck.
Employing people in an economy with depressed demand for labor really only takes government spending money. There's no other way to do it. If you don't have anything else to offer, fine, but you can hardly blame politicians for trying to do what people elected them to do.
tony,
of course, POTUS trades in demonization and scapegoating. It's all he has. He could run on his record, but 9% unemployment for virtually his entire term does not sell. Neither does a trillion dollar giveaway to favored constituencies through the spendulus, nor does the looming cost of nationalized health care warm hearts. Divide and conquer is all he has, like any good disciple of the School of Saul.
A "depressed demand for labor" cannot be cured by spending more borrowed money. If it could, we would have perpetual full employment. Anyone who elected someone in the hopes that the someone would pay him with someone else's money truly deserves the govt he voted for.
So you're blaming Obama for high unemployment but saying it is impossible for him to do anything about it? Given the state of our politics you can hardly blame him for demonizing and scapegoating, as you put it, since it appears he has little other choice.
So you're blaming Obama for high unemployment
Some of it, yeah. His regulation spree, his borrowing spree, all that suppresses business activity.
but saying it is impossible for him to do anything about it?
Not at all. We're saying that it is impossible for someone pushing his policies to do anything about it.
Also don't forget the yearly threats to raise taxes on the rich. Even if he's not able to do it, threats to raise the cost of doing business of thousands of employers will certainly make them think twice about hiring a new employee without knowing how much it could end up costing them.
So you're blaming Obama for high unemployment but saying it is impossible for him to do anything about it?
He can do a lot:
Cut spending, cut taxes, cut regulations, cut the anti-free market rhetoric, cut the choose-winners and losers economic polices, repeal Obamacare and replace it with a vouchers program and discourage employer payed health care.
That right there would give us 4% GDP and lower the unemployment to 5% within a year.
Hell that isn't even really a libertarian solution...I think JFK came up with most of it 40 fucking years ago.
You guys can't seriously think these mindless regurgitated Republican talking points make for an understanding of economics.
Taxes are at historic lows. Unemployment is high. I challenge you to point to any data from the last century that show even a correlation between tax rates and employment.
You guys worship the market but seem loath to even acknowledge supply and demand. It's all "give CEOs tax cuts and they might bestow charity on the unemployed."
mindless regurgitated Republican talking points
Once again I give you the mindless regurgitated republican JFK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdXrfIMdiU
We don't want to divide and demonize! Except against democrats, liberals, union folks, public sector employees, and soldiers. They suck
I think there are a large group of us here that want to demonize conservatives and republicans and culture warriors as well. They also suck.
You don't see it simply because you are a drank-the-koolaid-TEAM BLUE-partisan-hack.
tony,
you are either clueless or a liar
False binary.
Tony's right. Those libertarians and Republicans only oppose my plan because they like unemployment! Don't they know the stimulus worked? Unemployment is at 9.1%, but it could have been 91% had it not been for spending nearly a trillion dollars on lofty job creating projects such as closing the 405 freeway and our nation's greatest energy company, Solyndra. I saved and/or created a billion gazillion jobs! Had it not been for my stimulus, Antarctica would have flown out into space! I am the reason Arrested Development is coming back.
Those libertarians and Republicans don't have any plan except for those plans I pretend don't exist, like those trickle down economic theories of keeping your own money. That won't cause a trickle it will cause a flood of capital into the private sector, which promotes greed. I'm opposed to such ideas as a matter of fairness. I promote equitable trickling down of capital, such as deciding which industries are fair and give me campaign money and giving it to them.
Basically it comes down to this. If you are pro jobs, I may not be for you, but if you are pro jobs plans, vote for me. I have a lot of plans. Cash for clunkers, stimulus, green jobs, high speed rail and the piece that holds it all together, roof weatherization. While I'm not going to talk about how effective these are, the fact remains I have plans. Much like the student who always turns his papers on time, but receives Ds and Fs on all of them, the last thing you can say about me is that I'm not trying.
Relect me in 2012, F for results, but A for effort.
Not taking from successful people equals giving to them. Got it.
Yet somehow taking from Medicare recipients doesn't equal stealing.
If by "taking from" you mean "not giving to", then yes.
"Whereas the libertarian plan is for government to do nothing, blame people for their joblessness,..."
I agree with this part.
I blame the government for the unemployment rate in the same way i blame the government for the financial crisis.
Dump so many trillions into programs that discourage employment and encourage fraudulent lending you will get a shit pot unemployment and a shit pot of fraudulent lending.
Incentives matter.
why does anyone refer to Obama's campaign as a jobs plan?
It's a jobs plan for him and Michelle Antoinette's huge staff.
[::wistfully::] "Sure do wish somebody else had 'a huge staff,' if you get where I'm coming from..."
He's fighting as hard as he can to keep an American in his job.
Citation needed.
At least the questions seem fair.
This is posted on "reason.com?" Please. You're better than this. I think. I hope.
This is posted on "reason.com?" Please. You're better than this. I think. I hope.
Most of the time i would be pissed...but reading this article feels like David Harsanyi is pounding a sledge hammer on my head.
Thank you for participating. You may now pay your poll tax.
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What is this doing on reason.com? I come here expecting articles of at least some quality, not this pop-journalism trash filled with straw men, misrepresentation of positions and tilting at windmills.
Nice work and funny.
Oops... I thought it was a farce. My mistake.
good