Unpopular Congress Nixes Popular Obama Jobs Plan

While Occupy Wall Street demonstrators railed against corporate greed and the injustices of a system that coddled the rich and debased everyone else, while real unemployment rose to 18.41%, while Americans from sea to shining sea gathered glumly around barren kitchen tables, a despised and disgraced Congress increasingly disconnected from its constituents and increasingly obsessed with wallowing in piles of K-Street lobbyist cash summarily dismissed President Barack Obama's popular jobs legislation.

By a 50-49 Tuesday vote in the Senate, Obama's $447 billion jobs package fell far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed. In a sign of how wretched this Congress was, no on was surprised the measure was defeated.

Two Democrats, Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) and Sen. Jon Tester (MT), joined every Republican in the Senate to defeat Obama's bid to fix 30,000 schools, hire teachers and firefighters and cops, extend a payroll tax holiday for middle class Americans, and slap a 5.6% tax surcharge on millionaires and billionaires.

It was no wonder a new Gallup poll revealed Congress continued to match its lowest-ever 13% approval rating, again tying a record for disgrace attained only twice before, in December 2010 and August 2011. Fully 81% disapproved of the job Congress was doing.

It was also no wonder that a new Washington Post/ABC News poll found the American people now trusted Obama to do a better job of creating jobs than Congressional Republicans, 49% to 34%. Just one month ago, Obama and Congress had been tied, 40% to 40%.

"If voting against another stimulus is the only way we can get Democrats in Washington to finally abandon this failed approach to job creation then so be it," crowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Tuesday, denigrating the sort of stimulus every economist not getting fat checks from Rupert Murdoch and Fox News agreed the nation needed.

Republicans were only interested to coddling corporations and their wealthy cronies with more and bigger tax cuts and subsidies, empowering more and bigger mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, outsourcings, and offshorings. Republicans were only interested in compounding the supply-side, trickle-down, voodoo economics that had already concentrated 84% of America's wealth into the hands of 20% of America's wealthiest, and created the economic boom in their beloved China.

The 103,000 jobs the economy added in September failed to keep pace with the growth in the nation's workforce, which increased by 200,000. The official unemployment rate remained at 9.1%, while some measures of U-7 unemployment, which included full-time job seekers, a portion of part-time job seekers, the underemployed and discouraged workers, rose to 18.41% from 18.26%.

The number of people unemployed for 27 or more weeks rose from 6.03 million to 6.24 million.

Republicans were doubtless delighted, as they likely viewed a moribund economy as their ticket into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2012. Republicans had an apparent vested interest in prolonging the nation's economic misery.

"Their strategy is to suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said Tuesday. "They think that the more folks see Washington taking no action to create jobs, the better their chances in the next election."

The jobs plan Senate Republicans defeated had been a popular one among America's voters:

• 85% had approved of Obama's proposal for small business tax cuts and hiring incentives.
• 75% had approved of additional funds for more teachers, cops and firefighters.
• 73% had approved of tax incentives for hiring the long-term unemployed.
• 72% had approved of additional funding for public works projects like fixing up the 30,000 schools.
• 56% had approved of extending unemployment benefits. 

And, of course, 66% had approved of raising taxes on those making $200,000 or much, much more a year. 23 polls conducted between December, 2010 and August 2011 showed roughly two-thirds of Americans wanted the rich to pay higher taxes to pay down national debt, close deficits, and shore up Social Security and Medicare. And, since August:

• The Economist/YouGov Poll of Sept 24-27 revealed 68% favored raising taxes on families making $1 million or much, much more a year.
• The CBS News Poll of Sept 28-Oct. 2 found 64% favored raising taxes on millionaires to lower the deficit.
• The Harrison Group/American Express poll of Oct. 4 found 65% favored raising taxes on those earning $1 million or unspeakably more a year.

Now, Gallup found 81% disapproved of Congress even before they knew the Senate had rejected Obama's jobs bill and it's millionaire/billionaire surtax.

Apparently, by rejecting taxing the rich, the single most widely favored item on the checklists of the people they professed to represent, Congress was shooting for a perfect 100% condemnation.

Polls: GOP Favors Fat-Cat Rich, Perry Stumbles, Romney Stagnates

Much like a Russian opera, the GOP presidential pageant thus far has been a cycle of Republican stalwarts gushing enthusiasm for some new savior, then quickly souring on said savior. Sarah Palin, Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) , Mitch Daniels, and Jon Huntsman have all gone from rising to fading star at some point or another.

Add Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the conga line of enchantment-dashers.

All through the voter volatility, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney remained the GOP's unsatisfactory default setting.

Warming up in the bullpen, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had become the most recent heart-throb du jour, even though Perry hadn't had a chance to unpin his corsage and take off his prom dress.

But, the most interesting polling information of late came from the Washington Post/Pew Research Center Poll taken Sept. 22-25, confirming yet again that everyone in fact did see the glaringly obvious.

A plurality of Americans believed Republicans were doing more to help the haves rather than the have-nots. Of all respondents, 47% believed the GOP favored the haves, 7% believed the GOP favored the have-nots, and 32% believed Republicans treated both about the same.

Broken down by party affiliation, 72% of Democrats and 46% of Independents figured Republicans were for the rich, while just 20% of Republicans viewed themselves that way. 60% of Republicans felt they were the fairest of all, treating everyone equally.

Meanwhile, folks were telling The Economist/YouGov Poll Sept. 24-27 that the Obama Administration cared about the poor and middle classes, while Republicans cared more for the rich.

53% of respondents felt the Obama Administration was either Very or Somewhat Concerned about issues that affected poor people, while 32% felt the Obama Administration was either Not Very or Not At All Concerned about issues that affected the poor.

People believed Republicans were the Obama Administration's polar opposite, with 33% saying the GOP was either Very of Somewhat Concerned for the poor, while 52% said Republicans were either Not Very or Not At All Concerned for the poor.

Regarding the middle class, 48% thought the Obama Administration was Very/Somewhat Concerned, and 37% Not Very/Not At All Concerned. Again, the GOP was seen as it's antithesis, with 39% believing Republicans Very/Somewhat Concerned for the middle class, and 47% believing Republicans Not Very/Not At All Concerned for the middle class.

When it came to coddling the rich, 46% thought the Obama Administration was Very/Somewhat Concerned about offending upper-class sensitivities, and 36% thought the Obama Administration was Not Very/Not At All Concerned about the rich.

However, a whopping 73% felt Republicans were Very or Somewhat Concerned about the rich, with a majority, 52%, saying Very Concerned for the rich. Only 6% said Republicans were Not At All Concerned for the rich.

52% of the same respondents told The Economist/YouGov they favored raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year, and 68% said they favored raising taxes on those making $1 million or more a year, in line with numerous previous polls asking similar questions.

Among those who didn't favor raising taxes on those making gazillions of dollars a year, three new polls revealed the Russian opera angst with their choices to carry the elephant banner against President Barack Obama next fall.

In a situation somehow evocative of the old saw about the two diners at the restaurant where the first one said, "This food isn't very good," to which the second replied "Yes, and the portions are so small," Fox News found that while 50% of respondents felt Obama would lose his re-election bid versus 40% who figured he'd win, only 38% were either Very Impressed or Somewhat Impressed with the current Republican candidates, while 58% were either Not Very or Not At All Impressed with the GOP hopefuls.

Fox News found that the sheen had come off Perry. Awkward performances at recent GOP presidential debates having taken that nice fresh-off-the-showroom new-candidate smell off Perry, and he was the choice of just 19% of Republicans Fox News polled.

Good ol' reliable Mitt Romney plugged along as the choice of 23% of those queried by Fox News. But, Romney had polled at 26% in the same poll in July and August. While Perry had tanked a bit, Romney hadn't prospered. Along with former pizza mogul Herman Cain's recent victory at the Florida Straw Poll, one had to wonder exactly what sort of front-runner Romney was supposed to be.

Cain himself seemed to have gained where Perry had lost, climbing to 17%, with Newt Gingrich (11%), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) (6%), Jon Huntsman (4%), Bachmann (3%) and Rick Santorum (3%) rounding out the field.

The Economist/YouGov poll gave angst-ridden Republicans more choices, and the field flattened even further. Romney still led, but with only 15%, tied with Christie, followed by Perry (14%), Cain (11%), Palin (8%), Gingrich, Paul and Rudy Guiliani (6%), Bachmann (4%) and Santorum and Huntsman (2%).

CNN/ORC found folks kinder to Perry, holding a narrow lead at 28%, followed by Romney at 21%, Gingrich at 10%, Cain, Palin and Paul tied at 7%, Bachmann at 4%, Santorum at 3% and Huntsman at 1%

For the championship round, CNN/ORC now showed Obama leading all comers, outpacing Romney 49%-48%, Perry 51%-46%, Paul 51%-47%, Bachmann 54%-42%, and Palin 58%-37%.

Everyone kept saying it was still very, very early, which it was, but most people who say that were usually discounting their favorite team being eight games behind at the All Star Break. And, most of those teams never won the World Series. Unless they were the Yankees.

Er, sorry about that, Mitt.

Poll Finds Obama Deficit Reduction, Jobs Plans Popular

The deficit reduction and jobs plans President Barack Obama recently proposed, dead long before arrival among Republicans focused on obstructing anything except more tax cuts for their rich cronies, at least appeared popular with ordinary Americans.

One of the most popular items among proposals that sought to trim $3 trillion off the federal deficit while kick-starting the economy was the so-called Buffett Rule, which aimed to guarantee millionaires and billionaires paid taxes at least at the same rate as everyone else.

A new Gallup poll released Tuesday found that 66% of respondents favored the President's plan to raise taxes on those making $200,000 or much, much more a year, in line with nearly two dozen previous polls that found most Americans wanted the rich to pay their fair share to reduce the nation's debts or shore up entitlements. Another 32% of respondents turned out to be Republicans.

Even more popular was Obama's proposal to increase taxes on corporations by closing loopholes. 70% favored that idea, while 26% were opposed. A chunk of Republicans apparently didn't understand the question, probably because they couldn't imagine anyone asking whether corporate loopholes should be closed. It was GOP intransigence on adjusting the depreciation rate for corporate jets - not eliminating the deduction for corporate jets, as any sane person would demand, but just making it take longer to write them off - that scuttled deficit reduction talks during the debt ceiling hostage crisis.

Those polled favored five of six other Obama proposals:

• Tax cuts for small businesses, including hiring incentives, was favored 85% to 13%.
• Providing additional funds to hire teachers, cops and firefighters was favored 75% to 25%.
• Tax breaks for hiring those unemployed longer than six months was favored 73% to 26%.
• Additional funding for public works projects, including fixing up 30,000 schools, was favored 72% to 27%.
• Extending unemployment insurance benefits was favored 56% to 41%.

Only reducing Social Security taxes for both workers and employers was narrowly opposed, 49% to 47%.

Even Republicans among the respondents favored five of the eight proposals, rejecting only the tax hikes on those making $200,000 or much, much more a year; the extension of unemployment benefits; and reducing Social Security taxes.

65% of those polled figured Obama's jobs plan would help create more jobs at least a little, including 27% who believed it would help a lot. 60% felt Obama's jobs plan would help the economy at least a little, including 23% who felt it would help a lot.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was exasperated. "Unfortunately, what we've seen now is the president has made a decision that he's going to go into full campaign mode now, 14 months before the election," he sputtered Wednesday as a reporter for the Hill scribbled down his whining.

God forbid the President of the United States advocate the wishes of the American people.

The Politico reported the so-called moderate intelligentsia was up in arms as well, claiming Obama had abandoned his centrist position and caved in to the left. First off, 'moderate intelligensia' was an oxymoron, and secondly, Obama hadn't come anywhere near, let alone caved in to, the left.

In fact, in a right-of-center nation, Obama was clearly espousing a right-of-center position, thus nailing the two-thirds nodding thoughtfully. The so-called moderate intelligentsia and their self-styled centrism appeared actually to be somewhere to the right of Louis XVI, who himself was to the right of Louis XIV. To be precise, the so-called moderate intelligentsia appeared more like the fawning courtiers brown-nosing and toadying up to Louis XVI. Their concept of centrism appeared to consist of protesting symbolically before caving in to whoever had 85% of all the wealth, then letting them add another hundred rooms and six hundred fountains to their Versailles.'

Republicans, meanwhile, appeared politically somewhere between Genghis and Kublai Khan.

While Obama's proposals fell far short of doing all the right things in all the right ways, he at least took a couple baby steps in the right direction. Although Obama failed to raise taxes on the rich enough to pay off everything that needed paying off, and failed to cut the unconscionably high taxes on the poor and middle classes (see sidebar), he at least acknowledged the rich ought to pay at least a little more. Although Obama failed to put forth plans to fix the $2 trillion in infrastructure needing repairs, or even to plug the $1 trillion hole in the nation's economy, he at least tried to get some potholes filled and get a few classrooms brought up to code. Although Obama failed to call for the kind of revenue recirculation and spending the nation really needed to haul it out of the doldrums, he at least proposed a few measures incenting business to hire a few more unemployed.

You can't get much more right-of-center than that.

The Christian Science Monitor's calculator-and-spreadsheet gang figured out that Obama's plan didn't reduce the deficit by as much as the President claimed, as the $1.6 trillion in additional revenue the Buffett Rule and other tax hikes on those making $200,000 or much, much more a year was actually being counted after renewing all the Bush tax cuts as well as Alternative Minimum Tax relief, which were both deficit-financed.

Doing nothing and just letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012 would have reduced the deficit more.

However, the CSM figured it was a darned sight better than anything Republicans wanted, which was more tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies for the very, very rich paid for by exterminating all Americans through dismantling health care (axing Medicare, Medicaid, and, eventually, employer-provided insurance, because, why the heck should they bother?), eliminating old age pensions (raiding Social Security and anything a union or employer might provide, because why shouldn't the rich plunder anything they could plunder?), and reducing the nation to a toxic wasteland (nixing the EPA and abolishing cumbersome "job-destroying" regulations).

Republicans still weren't going to pass anything the President proposed anyway, unless the President was ready to be "serious" by Republican standards, which meant lavishing more tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies on the very, very rich, allowing them to plunder Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and requiring everyone to burn as much fossil fuel as inefficiently as possible.

Thus, so long as Republicans weren't going to allow the President do anything anyway, Obama might as well go into full campaign mode. As the real right-of-center candidate.

Polls Dismal For Everyone, But Americans Want GOP To Run Congress

New polls revealed Americans were disenchanted with both President Barack Obama and Congress, but, even though Americans most strongly disapproved of congressional Republicans, they still wanted Republicans to control Congress.

Go figure.

Perhaps as long as Barack Obama was going to do whatever congressional Republicans wanted anyway, Americans figured they might as well have the real thing. Perhaps the polling revealed the President needed to grow a backbone.

According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey taken last week, 44% approved of the job Obama was doing, while 51% disapproved. Just 37% approved Obama's handling of the economy, while 59% disapproved. Obama really needed to grow a backbone.

The new ABC/Washington Post poll likewise found 43% approved of Obama's overall job performance, while 53% disapproved. Again, the economy appeared to be driving the numbers, as only 36% approved Obama's handling of it, while 62% disapproved. He really, really needed to grow a backbone, and here's why:

Just 13% of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing. A staggering 82% disapproved of the way Congress was stacking its file folders and shuffling its paper clips, NBC/WSJ found. More to the point, just 28% of Americans approved of the job congressional Republicans were doing, while an everybody-who's-not-a-Tea-Party-zealot-into-the-pool 68% disapproved of congressional Republicans.

Clearly, if Obama just grew a backbone and told congressional Republicans to go jump in a tar sands tailings pond, his numbers would improve.

Or not.

There was one weird nugget in the NBC/WSJ survey. Despite folks trusting Obama more than Republicans on handling the economy, 42%-39%; despite folks favoring Democrats over Republicans for standing up for the middle class, 58%-31%; and despite folks figuring they wanted to kick every member of Congress, including their own, to the curb in 2012 by a 54%-41% margin, Americans said they preferred a Republican-controlled Legislative Branch by a convincing 47%-41%.

No wonder God was punishing America with a plague of Michele Bachmannisms and Sarah Palindromes.

Slightly better news for Obama was that he now led GOP Presidential pretender Gov. Rick Perry in an elect 'em today matchup, 47% to 42%. Milquetoast Mitt Romney fared a within-the-margin-of-error tossup 46%-45%, with Obama snagging the 46%.

Obama, however, trailed the heartthrob dreamboat Generic Republican 40% to 44%. As putting a face and a name to a GOP candidate invariably eroded the GOP's numbers, they were best off putting up a blank white dummy in a suit labelled with black lettering reading "candidate" across its chest. Hence, Romney's popularity.

The best news for Obama was that a solid majority still believed the bad economy was one Obama inherited. According to NBC/WSJ, 56% figured Obama had come into the game with the bases loaded, no outs, a couple of runs already in, and Albert Pujols stepping into the batter's box. And, as far as the fastballs and sliders Obama was tossing Pujols, 59% of the folks in the ballpark were somewhat to extremely confident the President had put forth the right set of goals and policies to improve the economy, versus 40% who figured he should have been tossing curveballs and changeups instead.

Only 33% figured America's economic woes were all Obama's fault, a number comprising everybody in the Tea Party plus four or five guys who thought Bachmann and Palin were hot.

NBC/WSJ found 37%, basically those Tea Party zealots and the guys who thought Bachmann and Palin were hot, opposed ending the Bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 or more to reduce the deficit, while basically everyone else, 60%, approved of ending the Bush tax cuts on the rich.

Likewise, the same 37% wanted to reduce the deficit with only spending cuts and without raising taxes on the rich or big corporations, while the same everyone else, 60%, found that notion mostly to totally unacceptable.

Only 20% wanted to cut Medicare benefits to reduce the deficit, while 78% thought that was a bad idea, revealing the proportion of seniors among Tea Party zealots.

Of course, Republicans were eager to voucherize Medicare and privatize Social Security, and Obama was making noises he was on board with at least slashing Medicare and Social Security benefits, so, adding that to the dismal economic picture, 77% of Americans felt the country was headed down the wrong track, and 72% figured things were going to get worse before they got better.

And, they were almost certainly right.

Thursday, Barack Obama was slated to deliver his plan for jobs. It probably included a plea to extend the current middle-class payroll tax cut, which Republicans would nix, and a call for some infrastructure spending, which Republicans would laugh out loud at. Republicans notwithstanding, whatever Obama offered up probably wasn't going to be enough to contend with the worst economy since Bonnie ran around with Clyde.

Whatever weak cheese Obama offered up, Albert Pujols was almost certain to smack it high and deep to center field for a tape-measure shot into the upper deck.

In baseball, the most important stat for relievers was what happened with their inherited runners.

GOP Rallies Behind Perry In Push to Eliminate Social Security, Medicare

Republicans eager to eliminate Social Security and Medicare have feverishly rallied behind Texas' extremist cowboy Governor Rick Perry, a new Gallup poll revealed.

A week since tossing his ten-gallon hat into the GOP presidential ring, Perry has opened up a double-digit lead over his nearest rival, milquetoast moderate-by-Republican-standards Mitt Romney. The anti-government, pro-tycoon populist Perry led Romney 29% to 17% among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters mulling their choices for a 2012 standard bearer.

On the campaign trail, Perry, who championed abolishing Social Security in his recent book, Fed Up!, reiterated his vehement opposition to FDR's landmark safety net.

"Have you read my book, Fed Up?" Perry strutted before enraptured Waterloo, IA sycophants Aug. 14 in a video clip posted on the Daily Kos. "Get a copy of it and read it!" he said, in full Palin-snake-oil-selling mode.

Perry warmed up to his favorite pitch, crowing, "kids who are coming along, they know for a fact there's not going to be a Social Security and Medicare program!"

"We have to talk about how are we going to transfer over," Perry stumbled a moment, presumably catching himself before he said 'transfer over all the money in the Social Security Trust Funds to my fat cat K Street cronies who'll kick me back a big finder's fee,' and finished by just saying, "How are we going to make the transformation" to a medieval plutocracy where the elderly were abandoned to destitution and misery.

Conscious of rousing a public backlash, Perry spokesperson Ray Sullivan attempted to walk back his candidate's rabid anti-Social Security rant, and said Fed Up! "was a look back, not a look forward," written "as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excess, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto."

Republicans, however, appeared jubilant they had a champion who coveted dismantling Social Security.

The surging Perry had rapidly outstripped the GOP field. Aside from trouncing Romney 29% to 17%, he was ahead of Reps. Ron Paul's (R-TX) 13% and Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) 10%. With Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani in the mix, Perry still snagged 25%, with the Palin drawing 11% and Giuliani garnering 9%.

Gallup also found that Perry was in a dead heat with President Barack Obama, 47% to 47%. Obama, whose popularity has been plummeting, trailed Romney 46% to 48%, and led Bachmann by just four points.

Despite his handlers' best efforts, the indomitable Perry remained scathing in his denunciation of Social Security.

"Social Security is something we have been forced to accept for 70 years now," Perry wrote. He told the Daily Beast, "Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare, you've got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They're bankrupt. They're a Ponzi scheme."

Never mind that all three programs were actually solvent, and would remain so ad infinitum if the wealthy would pay their fair share of taxes instead of fattening themselves on the unconscionable tax breaks and subsidies lavished on them by toadying GOP politicos.

With Perry as their favorite, Republicans were plunging ahead with their plans to eliminate Social Security and hand all its funds to Wall Street moguls eager to toss other people's money onto the roulette wheel of international equity markets while collecting their rake regardless of which slot the ball fell into. Despite furious public outrage, the GOP was doubling down on their plans to dismantle Medicare, hand all its money to insurance industry cronies, and pawn off future seniors with worthless discount coupons the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office revealed wouldn't cover a third of seniors' health care costs.

Republicans counted on repeating the "Social Security is broke" and "Medicare is broke" lies until gullible rubes coast to coast believed them. Republicans knew if square-jawed, photogenic white populists pounded their fists and lied loud enough and long enough, the rubes invariably believed them. Texas was lousy with evangelical revival meetings filled to the rafters.

Perry's even led his share of them.

In fact, Medicare was the most efficient deliverer of health care services in America, with administrative costs of 3%, compared to 5%-10% for large group insurance plans, 25%-27% for small group plans, and a whopping 40% for the kind of individual plans Republicans wanted future seniors to shell out for.

In fact, Social Security was solvent for another twenty years, and, with minor tweaks to payroll taxes, would remain so until starship troopers found a better solution at the other end of the galaxy.

Republicans, however, were greedy for the 10%, or 27%, or 40% "administrative fees" their insurance industry cronies could gorge themselves on. Republicans and their billionaire cronies were too greedy to pay the minuscule payroll tax tweaks that would fund Social Security until genetically-modified, bionically enhanced pigs rocketed across infinity and beyond.

Perry told the Daily Beast he believed Social Security and Medicare were unconstitutional.

"I don't think our Founding Fathers when they were putting the term 'general welfare' in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care," Perry pontificated. "What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address," although where Perry got that notion was, to say the least, unclear.

The interviewer asked Perry, "What did the Founding Fathers mean by 'general welfare?'"

Perry muttered, "I don't know if I'm going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant." Further questions were met by silence.

At a time when half of America's senior citizens couldn't support themselves and millions suffered poverty and destitution, a real American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, told Congress, "If, as our Constitution tells us, our Federal Government was established...'to promote the general welfare,' it is our plain duty to provide for that security upon which welfare depends." Fifteen months later, on August 14, 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act into law.

Nothing could be clearer than that.

Polls: Neither Dem or GOP Debt Ceiling Plan Cleaves To Americans' Wishes

Yet another poll revealed how disconnected from ordinary Americans the Washington Beltway pols were.

A Reuters/Ipsos flash poll conducted Monday evening after President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) addressed the nation revealed 68% of Americans believed federal government debt should be addressed either with a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes, or tax hikes alone.

Yet, both surviving debt plans being haggled over in Congress addressed the problem with cuts only, a strategy favored by just 19% of the American people

Poll after poll has revealed the fevered haggling in Washington has drifted further and further from the wishes of the electorate.

While 72% of Americans wanted to raise taxes on those making $250,000 or more to save Medicare and Social Security, Republicans subverted the discussion in Washington to one about lowering taxes on those making $250,000 or more, while voucherizing Medicare and privatizing Social Security.

While 56% of Americans want to address the nation's debt with a combination of cuts and tax hikes, and 12% want to address the debt with tax hikes alone, Republicans wrestled the Washington budget discussion away from a discussion of cuts and revenue reforms, and into a discussion of the size and timing of an all-cuts scheme.

While 60% of Americans said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they were was more important, Beltway Republicans numbered among the 32% of Americans who said reducing the deficit was more important.

Republicans making $75,000 or much, much more a year were the only demographic group that prioritized deficit reduction over maintaining Social Security and Medicare, by 68% to 28%. And, Republicans making $75,000 or much, much more a year have been controlling the discussion on Capitol Hill.

Republicans have successfully monopolized the debt ceiling conversation, making it all solely and exclusively about the amount of the tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies the rich would receive. All discussion of revenue reform was banished from the table. Instead, all discussion focused on slashing vital services all Americans relied upon, so the funds for those services could be handed to the already-rich.

Republicans controlled the conversation on the strength of a great PR campaign. Republicans characteristically pulled out Madison Avenue sound-bite pledges and postures. They pulled out yet another catchy-sounding slogan, Cut, Cap and Balance, to sell their scheme for the forced voucherizing of Medicare and plundering of Social Security so they could hand a $6 trillion tax subsidy to their already-unspeakably wealthy patrons and cronies. They wrestled the Washington discussion to when, not whether, to implement Cut, Cap and Balance.

Instead of discussing tax hikes on the richest Americans, Republicans hijacked the discussion to make it about the biggest tax subsidy the rich have ever enjoyed.

It is the Republicans' mastery of the message, their sovereignty over the sound-bite, that lets them, time and again, fool the ignorant into voting them into office so they could continue their thirty-year plundering of the nation. Their policies have paupered the country, concentrating 84% of the nation's wealth in the hands of 20% of its richest residents.

The Republican mantra of more tax breaks for the rich and more service cuts for everyone else continued to fool many into believing those tax breaks and service cuts somehow helped them. Tax breaks for the rich never created jobs, lowered health care costs, or cleaned up the environment. More service cuts never improved education, or put more cops and firefighters on the street.

Some softening of support for Republicans might have revealed a softening of American gullibility.

Despite Tea Party admonitions that failing to raise the debt ceiling posed no problems, 83% of Americans said they were either very concerned or somewhat concerned about the looming Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation's credit limit.

Despite Republican demagoguery, Reuters/Ipsos found a plurality of Americans, 31%, blamed Republicans for the debt ceiling deadlock, while 21% blamed President Obama. Just 9% blamed Congressional Democrats. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 42% would blame Republicans if debt hike negotiations failed, compared to 36% who would blame Obama.

There was some indication Americans considered Republican bravado as overreaching. Only 30% said they favored retaining their present members of Congress, while 63% said they preferred to look for someone else. Republicans might be swept out of power as quickly as they had been swept in, changing the focus of discussion on Capitol Hill to more closely match Americans' wishes.

Poll: Americans Favor Social Security, Medicare Over Deficit Reduction

Not surprisingly, a minority of wealthy Republicans is controlling the agenda on Capitol Hill, forcing President Barack Obama and Democrats to accept demands the vast majority of the American people oppose, a new poll revealed.

While House and Senate Republicans unconscionably hold the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling hostage to their incessant demands for tax giveaways to their wealthy patrons, and covet plundering Social Security and Medicare in the name of deficit reduction, Americans by a two-to-one margin want Social Security and Medicare benefits to be left alone, a new Pew Research Center poll released Thursday discovered.

When asked which was more important, 60% of Americans said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are, while 32% said taking steps to reduce the deficit.

If anyone had any question who made up that 32% , the poll found that across all ages, income groups, and political affiliations, only Republicans making more than $75,000 a year said deficit reduction was more important than keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.

And, Republicans making $75,000 or much, much more a year are the very intransigent Republican hostage-takers who are driving the agenda on Capitol Hill. Once again, the lunatic Republican minority of selfish rich was driving the national agenda in a direction no one but themselves wanted to go.

Among those Republicans making $75,000 or much, much more, 63% said reducing the deficit was more important, and 29% said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits the same was more important.

Not that wealth was the only driver for slashing entitlements while obsessing about debt. Among Democrats making $75,000 or more, 68% said keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits unchanged was more important, versus 28% who said reducing the deficit was more important.

Apparently, there was a difference between Democrats who were well off and Republicans who were well off. Apparently, Democrats had a sense of social responsibility and nationhood, while Republicans were callous, greedy, self-centered narcissists who could expect trouble with the Christmas Ghosts.

Among lower income groups, Democrats making $30,000 or less a year favored keeping benefits the same over reducing the deficit 72% to 22%. Surprisingly, among Republicans making $30,000 a year or less, keeping entitlement benefits the same trumped deficit reduction 62% to 33%.

Clearly, Republicans making $30,000 or less had voted against their own financial interests.

Even Republicans making $30,000-$75,000 favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction by 53% to 38%.

When divided into age groups, younger Americans tended to favor deficit reduction a bit more, but party affiliation was still more important. Democrats 18-34 said they favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction 63% to 34%, a gap that widened as the group aged, until those aged 65 and over favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction 81% to 7%.

Young Republicans 18-34, favored preserving benefits over deficit reduction 48% to 46%. By the time they got to age 35-49, they'd given up any pretense of social responsibility, entered full ogrehood, and favored deficit reduction 51% to 43%, probably figuring they were well on their way up the corporate ladder with a nice big house, a Mercedes, and a place in Aspen. Those numbers slipped by age 50-64 to favoring benefits 48% to 42%, as their prospects for a big killing dimmed, their big house was underwater, and they'd blown their retirement portfolio on that Aspen fiasco. By the time they were 65 and over, 52% favored preserving benefits, versus 35%, who apparently had accumulated fat trust funds and lacked any moral compass when considering the masses whose backs they'd run roughshod over to secure their cushy lifestyle.

Despite months of Republican deficit reduction harangues continuously highlighted on Fox News and the corporate media, the poll found support for preserving entitlement benefits had only eroded to 60% today from 70% in 1995, and support for deficit reduction had only risen to 32% today from 24% in 1995.

With that much media hysteria for so long on a subject, Madison Avenue should have been able to convince everyone in America to buy multiples of any unspeakably ugly thing you could imagine at exorbitant prices. Nehru jackets. Anything with Hanna Montana on it.

Moreover, 61% of Americans said those on Medicare already paid enough for their benefits, while 31% said they should pay more. Undoubtedly, that 31% included Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who schemed to dismantle Medicare, hand all its money to insurance company cronies, and force seniors to pay retail for private insurance using vouchers the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculated wouldn't cover even a third of the cost of premiums, deductibles. co-pays and other expenses.

58% of Americans said low-income persons shouldn't have their Medicaid benefits taken away, and yup, 37% said low-income persons should be left to rot and die horribly and miserably without any health care benefits at all. Anyone unsure who, exactly, comprised that 37% just hasn't been paying attention.

Thus, the vast majority of Americans have to hope that President Barack Obama isn't one of those 27% of Democrats aged 35-49 who favored deficit reduction over maintaining entitlement benefits. According to his birth certificate, long form or short, the President turns 50 on August 4, and the likelihood he'd favor deficit reduction over maintaining benefits drops to 16% versus 77%. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said America hits its debt ceiling and won't be able to fund operations Aug. 2.

Hopefully, the President won't make a decision he'll come to regret four weeks from now.

$5 Gas Attack Is De Facto GOP Assault on Obama

The big oil companies announced very, very big profits last week as gas prices surged above $5 per gallon in some parts of the nation. Best of all for Republicans, Americans were blaming Barack Obama for their pain at the pump, and the President's approval ratings were slipping.

Exxon enjoyed a 69% jump in first quarter profits over the same period last year, taking home $10.7 billion. Conoco Phillips' coffers jumped 43% as they stuffed another $3 billion into their kitty, and Chevron found they'd cleared $6.2 billion, up 36% from Q1 2010.

Royal Dutch Shell reported they'd managed to clear $6.3 billion in the first quarter, a 30% improvement over the first quarter last year. BP was the only one of the "Big Five" whose profits slipped this year, dipping to a measly $5.48 billion compared to $5.6 billion for the first quarter last year. BP incurred certain charges while it was busy mopping up some spillage over the summer.

While most folks would be happy with the billions, the oil moguls must have been even happier that their $5 per gallon gas attack was hurting one American even more than the rest. President Obama's popularity was down, especially among the 39% of Americans who said gas prices were hurting them. Only a third of them approved of Obama.

While analysts have blamed Middle East unrest, Chinese demand, and speculating speculators for high oil prices, actual global demand has flattened. The catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and meltdown tragedies in Japan, the world's third largest economy, have quelled some of the thirst for oil.

Some had been predicting $5 gas since before the current round of Mid-East turmoil. Former Shell Oil exec John Hofmeister said $5 gas was around the corner back in December, before anyone knew flying into Tripoli International was going to become a bit dodgy for anybody not riding a French Rafale fighter.

The big jump in pump prices has hurt the nascent economic recovery, although Wall Street shrugged off the anemic 1.8% first quarter growth in GDP.  Perhaps a sniff of Obama's lower approval scores helped ease their pain over weaker than expected growth.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had pledged that defeating Barak Obama in 2012 was the Republican Party's number one goal. For McConnell and the Republicans, creating jobs, growing the economy, and providing health care all took a back seat to destroying the Obama Presidency. The oil industry poured millions into Republican campaigns, the Independent Petroleum Association of America alone kicking $19 mil into GOP election coffers. The American Petroleum Institute, whose members include Exxon and Chevron, gave $27 million to mostly Republican campaigns. For that kind of largess, one would hope the oil companies at least approved of McConnell and the Republicans' agenda, let alone had a hand in formulating that agenda.

McConnell and his GOP legions went to Capitol Hill to wreck the Obama Presidency, and the oil companies were among the folks who sent them there to do so. Aside from sending others to do your bidding, if you could help your own cause simply by pumping up pump prices to grind down the economic recovery and bludgeon the President's approval rating while raking in a few extra billion to boot, why wouldn't you? If it wasn't part of the vast right-wing conspiracy's plot to destroy the world, it certainly should have been.

Analysts blaming speculators for rising oil prices doesn't preclude those speculators including industry insiders, and Republican contributors.

The President has long been calling for an end to oil company subsidies, which run to $4 billion a year.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan began making noises that ending subsidies might be an acceptable idea until Luca Brasi swung by with a horse's head wrapped in a blanket. $4 billion might begin approaching chump change status when it's spread out across an industry in which one company clears $10 billion in a quarter, but it turns out nobody wants to give up an extra four billion dollar bills to stuff into strippers' g-strings, after all.

Even if all this turns out to be a happy happenstance for GOP-backing oil moguls and their industry minions, it is certainly a de facto assault on the Obama presidency, with the American people as unfortunate collateral damage in the war to toss Democrats out of the White House. Intentional or not, the effect is precisely the same: pain at the pump, and more pain down the road when a faltering economic recovery falters completely.

Cracks in GOP Phalanx Appear on Ryan Medicare Couponization

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) just might start feeling like a bridesmaid as GOP heavy hitters start talking about not being wedded to his 2012 Budget proposal. Ryan, after all, is Chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the Budget is his thing. After initial hoopla from folks who should know better, some folks who did know better took a look at Ryan's ramblings, and pronounced them to be "Ludicrous and Cruel."

Then came polling that showed Ryan's budget was about as popular as a banjo hitter coming to bat with the bases loaded and the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth. Exactly that popular, in fact, as 78% opposed cutting Medicare to balance the budget, and 84% opposed canning Medicare in favor of a voucher program. In big league baseball, a .200 batting average, or 20%, is considered the demarcation of offensive futility. Hall of Famer George Brett popularized the "Mendoza Line," named for a particularly dreadful hitter.

As the Ryan plan's popularity scuffled around the Mendoza Line, a festive atmosphere engulfed GOP town hall meetings across America during Congress' spring break. Camera phones posted plenty of You Tube moments with Republican pols hemming and hawing in front of jeering crowds.

Just about that time, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) became the first groom to discreetly back a step or two away from the altar.

"It's Paul (Ryan)'s idea. Now other people have other ideas," Boehner mumbled and stumbled. "I'm not wedded to one single idea." Boehner had earlier stated that he "fully supports Paul Ryan's budget." This of course, was before the bill flopped, and Boehner flipped.

Apparently 84% of Americans had a great many ideas about Ryan's plans. Ryan's idea would dismantle Medicare, hand its money to insurance company cronies, and pawn off seniors with coupons that wouldn't cover a third of their health care costs, while giving the richest Americans another 10% tax break.

The Ryan plan would, for people presently under 55, replace Medicare, which pays doctors for services, with vouchers the future seniors would use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculated by 2030, Ryan's coupons wouldn't cover a third of what seniors would need to shell out for premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses.

GOP presidential aspirant-in-waiting Michele Bachmann (R-MN) then became a bride sidling a step or two away from the altar. "One position that I'm concerned about is shifting the cost burden to senior citizens," she told Fox News Sunday. She explained her vote for the Ryan budget with a not very graceful, "They are not pieces of legislation. They are aspirational documents."

The Ryan proposal was a bill, Michele, and a bill is a piece of legislation. Please cue that tape from "Schoolhouse Rock." Now, the Cub Scout's creed is an aspirational document. Unless you're President Barack Obama, for whom the Nobel Peace Prize was an aspirational document. But as far as aspirational documents go, most folks should start small and work their way up.

Some uncharitably consider Michele Bachmann as just a pretty face, if you like that nipped, tucked, botoxed faux-thirty Voldemort-with-a-nose look.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was smart enough to feign a headache and avoided going to the church altogether. She announced she wouldn't support the Ryan Couponization Budget weeks ago.

Then, former New York Lt. Gov.Betsy McCaughey, the Medicare-buster and anti-health care activist riding point for Ryan, was denounced by the authors of studies McCaughey touted as proving how Ryan's scheme guaranteed sunshine and roses for all. McCaughey had written editorials in several prominent periodicals pushing elder-genocide as a good thing, but the authors of studies she cited begged to disagree.

McCaughey also denegrated the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office as "deceptive." She found exception to findings that seniors would end up having to sell all their earthly belongings and empty their bank accounts before dying horribly and miserably while loved ones looked on helplessly in anguish because the Ryan coupons would only cover 68% of costs. "It's time for Congress to find a new source of honest, independant research" she said. She didn't mention Fox News by name.

Even among Republicans, trashing the Congressional Budget Office is a bit unseemly. At this rate, Ryan might find himself standing around the altar wondering where everyone was. Ryan should start worrying whether fellow Republicans might start blaming President Obama for tricking them into voting for the Ryan bill just make them look bad.

Poll: 84% Oppose GOP's Medicare Coupon Scheme

Republicans think robbing Medicare and handing the money to their insurance company cronies while pawning off future seniors with 30% off discount coupons good toward the purchase of private policies is a great idea. It makes big insurers even richer than they are, and condemns anyone under 55 to misery and early death as seniors if they are unable to pay 70% of the price of premiums, deductibles, co-pays and other expenses. Better still, as new seniors become sick or injured, they'll have to empty their bank accounts and retirement savings, making sure big pharma and big med get rich first before the impoverished elder is tossed out to die horribly and painfully in the gutter. The GOP figures there could be no more perfect solution to health care.

The vast majority of Americans, however, beg to disagree.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll revealed that 84% of Americans begged to disagree. When asked if Medicare, which pays seniors and the disabled's medical bills, should be replaced with a voucher seniors could use toward the purchase of private insurance, 65% said no.  Of those who said vouchers would be okay, 60% changed their minds when asked how they'd feel if the cost of private insurance rose faster than the value of the vouchers. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found just that problem with Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) coupon scheme. By 2030, the CBO said, seniors would end up paying 68% of their health care costs while the coupons covered 32%.

When the WaPo/ABC pollsters combined the 65% of folks who opposed Medicare couponization from the get-go with those who opposed couponization after finding out it wouldn't keep up with inflation, the pollsters discovered the grand total came to 84% of those polled opposing Paul Ryan's Medicare-gutting genocidal love tome to big insurers.

The same WaPo/ABC poll found that, to help balance budgets, 74% of Americans favored raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more, and Ryan found himself in a verbal tussle with some of that 74% in a Town Hall meeting in Wilton, WI recently. When Ryan argued with an audience member who thought the rich should pay more in taxes, the crowd booed. Ryan was no doubt miffed the crowd didn't just swoon over his cheap matinee idol mug.

Ryan's constituent questioned whether the rich should pay more as so much wealth has become concentrated among a fortunate few. Recent studies revealed the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the nation's wealth. The constituent, who described himself as a "lifelong conservative," said to Ryan, "There's nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down."

Actually, Ryan believes there's everything wrong with taxing the top, and doesn't care whether anything trickles down. Ryan's GOP 2012 Budget proposed giving the richest Americans another 10% tax cut on top of the tax subsidies they already enjoy. Ryan is a big Ayn Rand acolyte who believes individuals owe nothing to society, and that societies are useless. He figures the rich are entitled to indulge any whim no matter how excessive, and regardless of who has to die for it. Ryan is enamoured with Atlas Shrugged, and doesn't seem to realize that basing his life on a work of fiction makes him sort of like a Trekkie, albeit a narcissistic, uber-entitled, sociopathic Trekkie. Clearly, America would have been much better off had Ryan opted for pointed ears.

Ryan and legions of right-wing narcissists and sociopaths have loved Rand for generations because she justified their self-centered, self-indulgent, self-absorbed frat boy mentality. That Rand was a lunatic who idolized a serial killer and died of lung cancer and heart disease while receiving Medicare benefits she and her ilk hypocritically would deny others doesn't faze these deep thinkers.

Many believe Atlas Shrugged was a crappy book that could only impress self-possessed frat boys who'd never read anything weightier than the Playmate Profile behind the Centerfold.

Just as Trekkies talk about Klingons and starships as though they really existed, Randies like Ryan think abolishing Medicare and reserving health care for the rich is a good idea.

Hopefully, there will soon be a generation of lawmakers who'll base their entire lives on Harry Potter.

Tea Party Republicans Driven By Hate, Spite

The Tea Party Republicans who have stormed the nation's Capitol in a venom-filled blitz against the fabric of American life have been a puzzle to many who have tried to figure out who they are.  President Jimmy Carter said he thought they were racists. NPR executives were cashiered because someone suggested the same thing. Polls found the Tea Partisans were fairly well off financially.

The Tea Party freshman in Congress are the most extreme right-wing demagogues, howling daily to cripple the federal government with cuts to every department. They aim to dismantle the EPA and allow unfettered toxic pollution. They aim to disable banking and financial regulation and allow the unimpeded ransacking of every Americans' savings, pensions, and Social Security. They aim to eliminate education, health care, food safety, disaster preparedness, and a woman's right to chose. They aim to relegate persons of color to second-class status, domestic servants marginally acceptable for menial subservience.

They do favor birth control for horses.

They seem to have some peculiar ideas regarding leadership.  They thought Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, and Christine O'Donnell were good candidates to lead America.

A new CNN Poll throws more light on what Tea Partisans think.

In the current Washington budget tussle, Republicans have threatened to shut down the federal government unless they get $61 billion in crippling cuts to vital government services.  CNN asked Americans whether they thought an extended shutdown of the federal government would be a good thing or a bad thing. 74% said it would be a bad thing, and only 24% thought it would be a good thing. Most Americans believe a nation without a Social Security Administration, or air traffic controllers, or border patrol agents, or food safety inspectors, or any of the other myriad government functions would not be a good thing.

However, 52% of Tea Partisans said an extended government shutdown would be a good thing.

Digging further into the CNN poll reveals the twisted quirk that demonstrates that Tea Party adherents are indeed at odds with America as a whole.

Among all respondents, when asked who they would hold responsible for a government shutdown, 46% said Republicans would be the culprits, while 37% thought President Obama would be the guilty party.

Among folks who identified with the Tea Party, 63% said President Obama would be responsible.

Remember, the Tea Party said a government shutdown would be a good thing. And, they say President Obama would be responsible for it.

What does this reveal about the Tea Party? The Tea Party is on record as being in full blown hysterical outrage over the Obama presidency.  They say a government shutdown is a good thing, and Obama would be responsible.

There are two possibilities: Either they would laud President Obama for causing a government shutdown they favor but most Americans oppose, or they hate the President so much they want to see a government shutdown just so people could blame him for it.  Even though most people wouldn't.

Either way, the term "sociopath" comes to mind when considering a mindset that would hold such beliefs.

A group of people so hateful of America, so filled with spite and vitriol, who hold the health, safety and well-being of their fellow citizens in such disdain that they would wish to cut off Social Security payments to the elderly, that they would paralyze all air and rail traffic across the nation, that they would allow unmitigated belching of toxic effluents into our air and water, that they would allow murderers to run free across state lines poses the greatest threat to the nation's well being since the Second World War. The peril the Tea Party poses to America can only be measured in logarithmic multiples of any threat posed by beggared Mid-East terrorist cells cowering in mountain caves on the other side of the planet.

The Tea Party exists solely to destroy the United States, just as the perpetrators of the original tea party sought to overthrow the reigning British colonial authority.  The Tea Party thinks a government shutdown would be a good thing, because it would be the de facto elimination of the federal authority. The Tea Party believes President Obama would be responsible for the shutdown because his very existence, whether for his race, or his beliefs, or his hope for unity among Americans, is such anathema to the Tea Party that it necessitated the destruction of the greatest democratic institution in history.

The Tea Party representatives in Congress and the Tea Party candidates for offices throughout the nation expound the most extreme, unsustainable, and sociopathic agenda ever fomented. They denigrate immigrants as subhuman menials, they disparage science and learning as useless posturing, and they mock institutions and freedoms paid for in blood by countless generations.

The Tea Party has demanded that America do away with all the services and institutions needed to keep a modern democracy functioning because their refusal to pay their fair share of taxes has left the nation with a budget shortfall.  They say America cannot afford public education, health care, clean water, clean air, wholesome food, fair business practices, safe workplaces, and transparency in banking and finances.

In fact, the main thing America can't afford is the Tea Party.

Curtain Rises on Act Three of Beltway Budget Noh Play

The high-pitched whine of a Japanese flute or a manicured politician, the discordant screech of an ancient stringed instrument or an aged Lothario masked in tanning-bed orange, and the deep thud of a traditional taiko drum or a pot-bellied fixer signalled the curtain had risen on Act III of the intractably stylized posings of the Washington Beltway budget Noh play.  All the players wore masks, all the movements were choreographed, and all the drama was excruciatingly monotonous.

The House passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for another three weeks, Democrats having surrendered another $6 billion toward the Republican goal of crippling the government with $61 billion in cuts to vital services.

While Republicans preened and strutted their celestial peacock dance, and Democrats swooned and trudged in their forlorn ghost rags, the American people told a new ABC/Washington Post poll that they were sick of Republicans holding the government hostage, and they wanted the budget shortfall addressed with a combination of cuts and tax increases.

None of the Noh players listened.

Congressional Republicans categorically refuse to examine revenue reform, and Democrats mutely comply.  The Beltway politicos are content to allow hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans to suffer crippling cut to education, health care, and the elimination of government business and industry oversight so their plutocrat masters can get seventy-two coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on their new private Airbus 380s.

Tired of the budget impasse, 56% said President Obama should try harder to reach an accord with Republicans. However, 71% said Republicans hadn't been willing enough to compromise with the President.

On the budget, the public stood behind the President.  Americans said that should there be a government shutdown, 45% would hold Republicans responsible, compared to 31% who would hold President Obama responsible. Americans trust the President more than Republicans on handling the economy by 46% to 34%; on balancing the federal budget by 45% to 35%; and on protecting workers' rights by 45% to 39%.

47% of Americans believed the President better understood their economic problems, compared to 35% who thought Republicans did.

Most importantly, 67% believed taxes or a combination of taxes and cuts was the best way to address the federal budget deficit, while just 31% believed that cuts alone were the way to go.

Every major poll in the past week demonstrated that Americans believe that some sort of revenue reform was necessary to address government debt and deficit.

Nonetheless, the masked players on the nation's budget stage have no intention of raising revenue. Republicans will not raise taxes on their rich patrons, and they will continue to compete among themselves to show their masters who is the most loyal servant. Congressional Republicans will fight each other to be first to strip away yet more government oversight, consumer protections, and vital services and to deliver the next tax subsidy. Congressional Republicans are playing to one audience and one audience only: their GOP plutocrat masters.  In this, they are no different from the white supremacists, Neo-Confederates and gun-toting militia thugs who form the phalanxes beneath the GOP's elite. On the GOP side, everyone believes in toadying up to the plutocrats. In their medieval plutocracy, each vassal commits competing heinous acts of depravity to prove his loyalty and win tokens of recognition.

So far, Democrats have willingly gone along for a chance at a few of the table scraps.

Although the third major national poll in a week showed Americans contempt for the Republicans' cuts-only, coddle-the-rich approach to governing, Republicans are barrelling full-speed ahead with their Roadkill of America plot. They will stop at nothing until they either shut down the government, or destroy it and clear the field for their masters to take their places as the new feudal overlords of an impoverished fiefdom.

The new Continuing Resolution runs out in three weeks. Republicans and Democrats have each signalled they will no longer countenance stop-gap funding measures. The screeching and posturing goes on. Everyone is still wearing their masks.

Americans Want Budget Compromise, But Congress Seeks Only Cuts

The vast majority of Americans don't want Congress to cut Social Security, Medicare and vital government services, and believe the Bush-era tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 a year should be reversed, according to a recent national Bloomberg Poll. Americans do not want a government shutdown. Congress, however, remains focused on ever greater tax subsidies for the wealthy, and Republicans are threatening to shut down the federal government unless they get cuts to Social Security as a first step toward their long-coveted dream of handing the Social Security trust funds over to their Wall Street pals.

Americans would rather see cuts to defense spending than to Social Security and Medicare, but spending on defense, or more specifically, spending on defense contractors, is the only cow sacred to Congress, especially Congressional Republicans.

The poll found most Americans understood the government had to find additional revenue and opposed extending Bush-era tax subsidies for the rich. This was consistent with an earlier NBC/WSJ poll which found nearly all Americans approved of a tax surcharge for those making more than $1 million a year. In Congress, however, tax reform is off the table, out of the room, down the street and drowned in a canvas sack at the bottom of the Potomac.

Beltway politicians in their current iteration are all about coddling trans-national plutocrats by plying them with billions of dollars in taxpayer money.  At every turn, Republicans want to hand over ever-greater chunks of America's wealth to corporations and plutocrats through tax breaks, loans, guarantees and subsidies, and Democrats hem and haw for a few minutes before giving in.

Republicans have demanded $61 billion be cut from this year's budget, and, having been foiled in getting the cuts in one chunk, are now holding the government hostage to a shutdown unless they get $2 billion in cuts every week.  Considering the fiscal year runs another half a year, that comes out to just about $60 billion. The Republicans want to cut every part of the discretionary portion of the budget, which amounts to just 12% of total government outlays, slashing everything from Head Start to PBS to the EPA to programs for the elderly and sick.  All these cuts are ostensibly to eventually balance the budget, but in fact, will just make life miserable for ordinary Americans so the very rich can continue to add to their collections of private jets, or yachts, or embroidered panties from young female private service contractors.

Americans want Congress to compromise on cuts and taxes, but Congressional Republicans seek only to cut vital government functions.  By eliminating funding for the EPA, bank regulators, food safety inspectors, and every public watchdog agency, the budget cuts very conveniently benefit big corporate interests by eliminating oversight and enforcement of the rules and regulations designed to insure the public's safety and well-being. While Americans want real compromise balancing cuts and taxes, when Congressional Democrats say "compromise," they just mean they're giving the Republicans what they want.

Americans don't want to spend $159 billion this year on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and considering how American presence in the region appears to just be adding futile misery to a region roiled by new, more relevant turmoil, one can hardly wonder why.  However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates can only talk of avoiding premature withdrawal, as though repeating a mantra he'd heard somewhere, perhaps in a different context.

And all of this should take into consideration that only 29% of those polled believed that deficit and spending was the nation's top problem. 43% cited jobs and unemployment as the top priority.

Of course, slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for anyone who wanted to get rid of America's ability to curb illegal, unethical, and dangerous business practices. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for those who believe ordinary Americans should suffer every indignity so the rich can cannibalize the nations' strength in favor of their own excesses.  Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for right-wing lunatics from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages who dream of overthrowing the United States and restoring some hazily-envisioned antebellum white supremacist regime.

Now, where are those right-track, wrong-track numbers?

Ruining America is Republican Priority

Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's union-bashing blitz has earned him the disapproval of 57% of the people of his state, according to a new poll released by Rasmussen.  Significantly, Rasmussen is the GOP's virtual in-house polling organ, which spun the poll result as '43% approve of Walker.' Republicans hope that thirty years of eroding the nation's public schools and all those abysmal math and science test scores means people won't know 43% is less than half.

Funny how ignorance and hate work out well for the GOP. 

And that, of course, is at the core of the Republican plan to ruin America.  Their plutocrats just want to steal all the money, mostly using accounting tricks, while their racist thugs just want to kill and enslave all the people of color. The Republicans can accomplish neither if people remain informed and aren't forced to fight among themselves over the few scraps of civilization the Republicans toss their way. Therefore, for Republicans, it is critical to dismantle public education, which socializes as well as educates. It is much easier to defraud with accounting tricks if people can't add or subtract.  Republicans know they must destroy any media (PBS) they cannot co-opt. It is much easier to disenfranchise people who are uninformed. Republicans know they must continue to carve up the government's ability to provide vital services and to assure the public's safety, as an orderly society is less inclined to surrender its freedom. Chaos is the Republicans' ally.  If they can distract and misinform and confuse the public, they can achieve their goal of destroying the nation. 

Then, the GOP plutocrats can enjoy the rampaging capitalism of Russian gangster oligarchs and Chinese autocrats.

The battles over collective bargaining in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are crucial campaigns for the Republicans, but in the chronology of war, those battles are more akin to the final assault on Berlin at the end of World War II than the rolling of German tanks over the Polish frontier at the beginning of World War II.  The Republicans have already dismantled private sector unions and off-shored most organizable jobs.  This is why Republicans are able to point to the unionized state workers and say, 'those undeserving scum are getting all sorts of benefits you aren't!' People buy into the divisive hate, never considering that they too should be getting the same benefits, and that it's Republican plutocrats who are denying them those benefits.

And yet, recent polling has begun to show cracks in support for the Republicans' final assault on America. People seem to have begun to realize there's something fishy about the Republicans. They promised jobs, but they're doing away with jobs. They promised fiscal responsibility, but they continue to expand tax subsidies for their wealthy cronies while the nation's debts pile ever higher. And, people may have begun to realise that further cuts to vital services that have already been cut to the bone might have messy results.

The Republicans never cared about the American people, and now their attack on America is so far along they no longer need to fool anybody. Every sneak attack loses the element of surprise at some point, usually when the bombs start falling. Their sneak attack on America has caught people napping for thirty years. As sneak attacks go, thirty years without your enemy catching on is pretty good.

So, polls notwithstanding, Walker careens ahead with his plan to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights, as well as giving away the state's power plants to his Republican masters, the Koch brothers. Aside from plunging his state into debt with billions in tax subsidies to wealthy GOP cronies, Walker flexed his Khadafy muscles by denying emergency responders access to the state capitol building when some people got stuck in an elevator, and by having his goon squad batter a Democratic lawmaker to the ground as he tried to go to his office.  To the GOP's undoubted chagrin, no one died from blocking the emergency responders, and the goons failed to provoke a resisting arrest charge.

As Republicans in state houses across the nation strip away the final vestiges of organized labor and plan the mass surrender of state properties to Republican plutocrats, and Republicans in Washington take the federal government hostage, offering a choice of government shut down completely or crippled into ineffectiveness, the GOP is feeling they are nearing the top of the hill in their final battle to destroy the country they most hate.  They feel that soon, very soon, all those hated institutions of democracy and good governance will be forever vanquished, ghosts of a distant past that will not trouble them again.

Republicans Are Autocrats for the Plutocrats

Another day, another poll showing Republicans blustering and bludgeoning their way toward a GOP plutocrat Nirvana in defiance of the American peoples' will.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed 60% of Americans feared the Republicans' rampant budget-slashing would harm their families. While most respondents expressed concern about federal budget deficits and growing debt, Americans oppose Republicans cutting education, Social Security and Medicare.

This comes a day after another NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing 77% of Americans support Wisconsin state workers' right to collective bargaining, while Republicans blitz to strip those rights away

Despite the clear message that Americans oppose the GOP plutocrats' agenda, the Republicans are pushing ahead with their heinous schemes. 

While 74% of Americans (including one former Shell Oil Company CEO, John Hofmeister) oppose extending tax subsidies for the oil and gas industries,  Republicans voted unanimously to extend those tax subsidies. 76% of Americans want to ax unnecessary weapon systems, but lavish giveaways to their defense industry cronies is one of the few sacred expenditures Republicans will not touch.

And the 81% who favor raising taxes on the very rich would probably make some Republican death list, if the Republicans hadn't already decided the very rich would never be taxed, and people who think they should be are simply nonentities.

Oblivious to the hew and cry rising across the nation, Republicans continue to loudly drone their mantra of more tax subsidies for the wealthy, and more service cuts for everyone else.  Republicans lecture one and all that public sector workers unions are the cause of states' budget woes, even though it is obvious that the culprit is the Republicans' ever-spiralling tax giveaways to GOP plutocrats for their ever-expanding fleets of private jets and mega-yachts.

Republicans, like all autocrats, specialize in ear-splitting harangues completely dissociated from facts.  They say they want to address budget shortfalls and create jobs while pushing an agenda that would devastate the nation's economy and annihilate tens of thousands of jobs.  They stand smugly before TV cameras and continue to spout lies as obvious as Muammar Khadafy's claim that all Libyans love him, and that there are no protests in his country.

Clearly, Republicans are unconcerned about dictating policies contrary to the electorates' wishes.  Their actions would indicate they consider themselves above the democratic process. Their actions are consistent with those of autocrats who feel no need to act on behalf of their citizens. Are Republicans ready to do away with the electoral process altogether, or do they just know the voting machines have been rigged by their cronies at Diebold?

The Republican juggernaut careens ahead unimpeded, busting unions, crippling government, and devastating the environment certain that the wealthiest and most ruthless have absolute dominion over the world and all its people.

Union Busters Hit a Speedbump

The Grand Old Party's union-buster express hit a bit of a speedbump when a new USA Today/Gallup poll revealed 61% of Americans opposed the Republican's pet agenda to slash collective bargaining rights for state workers.

Despite Americans' increasing revulsion, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker plowed ahead with the union-busting gambit, spearheaded by a new multi-million dollar ad blitz funded by the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity front. The radio and television blitzkrieg will start tomorrow, adding to the right-wing clamor already coming from the corporate news networks.

In the face of the unified media disinformation campaign, what's most astonishing is that as many as 61% of those polled were well-informed enough to make a cogent decision on the question. This is noteworthy, considering how the traditional media had incessantly attempted to frame the issue as greedy union workers bankrupting a state by refusing to make concessions on overly generous wages and benefits they didn't deserve.  Somehow, word got out that the employes were more than willing to negotiate on wages and pensions, but the GOP wanted to proscribe their right to negotiate at all.

And this is on top of similar poll results from Ohio where a whopping 88% told the Columbus Dispatch they backed collective bargaining rights for state workers there.

Perhaps the message leaked out through Facebook and Twitter.

It may have been fear of information leaking through the worldwide web that prompted Walker and his masters to take an action that garnered the Tea Party darling the new moniker "Hosni" Walker. For a considerable period today, the protestors' website defendwisconsin.org had been blocked from the state capitol's wifi.

Under a wave of outcry, the Teapublican powerbrokers restored access to the site late in the day.

As protests spread to Indiana and Ohio, perhaps poll results such as those in USA Today and the Columbus Dispatch can help encourage Democratic leaders to decide they are in fact stalwart champions of the American working people. Many of them have remained quietly shuffling along the sidelines, timidly sniffing the wind for some sign that might indicate to them what they think.

Meanwhile, Hosni Walker remains defiant in his palace, waiting for the Koch brothers to send more thugs to reinforce the counter-demonstrations and to begin the media blitz on local versions of Egyptian State Television.