The Gallup poll shows that the majority of Americans support the two year extension of the tax cuts. This is not surprising given the fear Americans have on their economic situation and causality.
It is not that Americans support keeping the tax cuts for the wealthy in the abstract. Americans are hedging their bets. They have been told by Right Wing echo chamber repeatedly that removing the tax cuts from the wealthy would further depress the economy. While this is patently false, neither the media nor the Progressive blogosphere at large has spent the effort and resources to (un)indoctrinate Americans with a barrage of facts and real world examples that they can grasp.
In fact an argument can be made with data that the deficit spending caused by the unfunded tax cuts is partly responsible for the severity of the downturn and the limited ability of fiscal policy to address it. Again while many Progressives are vocal and seeking policy purity, many are not providing the real support to the President by mobilizing and educating the masses to give him cover.
Let’s get real here. The Right Wing has not only more passion in their ignorance but a dedicated infrastructure in Radio, TV, Internet, and Snail Mail that is constantly in your face. Watch any debate on MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, CNN, CBS, or NBC. The GOP is more forceful and sure of their position however wrong while we cower and usually allow them to have the last word. Words are but hot air. Action is what it’s about.
My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
Book’s Webpage: http://books.egbertowillies.com – Twitter: http://twitter.com/egbertowillies
White House Privately Pushing Data Showing Bush Tax Cut Extension Politically Popular WASHINGTON — Hoping to build support for the tax-cut deal that the president reached with Congressional Republicans, the White House has begun pressing Hill Democrats with polling data showing that extending the tax rates for the rich is politically popular.
A Senate aide sent over a copy of the email that an administration aide sent to offices on Wednesday morning. In it, the aide touts Gallup polling data showing that "Two-thirds of Americans (66%) favor extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts for all Americans for two years, and an identical number support extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed."
That an administration would promote polling data backing its policy preferences is normally not an astounding revelation. But the private push of the Gallup study struck the Senate aide as depressing if not counter-productive. Even as the president was insisting that he thought an extension of rates for the wealthy is poor economics — "I’m as opposed to the high-end tax cuts today as I’ve been for years," Obama said on Tuesday — his aides were privately embracing the idea that extending the Bush tax cuts across the board was politically prudent.
"We are making the argument for them," said the Senate aide, who sent over the email on condition that it could not be reprinted. "The White House now wants us to defend extending the Bush tax cuts."
The White House wasn’t the only party apparatus trying to disseminate the Gallup poll findings. On Wednesday morning, Don Stewart, the spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), also sent around the findings, pointing out that a "slight majority of Democrats, as well as most independents and Republicans, would vote for a two-year extension of the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003."
If the fraying of relations between the White House and congressional Democrats wasn’t apparent enough, an "administration official" was quoted in Politico late Tuesday evening relaying that Obama was so dispirited with his party’s leadership that he felt compelled to place his faith in direct talks with McConnell instead.
An administration ally, responding to complaints that Congressional Democrats were making about the contours of the tax-cut deal, went even further, suggesting his own party was assuming the role of hostage-takers — the moniker Obama applied to Republicans during his Tuesday press conference.
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White House Privately Pushing Data Showing Bush Tax Cut Extension Politically Popular