“But Iraq is only in second place when it comes to the 
public’s priorities. The No. 1 concern is the economy and jobs.
“And here is where Bush ought to be considering a new game plan. Although Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan declared the economy to be “on a reasonably firm footing” the other day, six out of 10 of those in the Pew survey said jobs are hard to find in their local areas — including almost half of those with household incomes over $75,000. Three out of 10 said they did not have enough money last year to pay for their medical and health care needs.
Bush has had relatively little to say about these economic anxieties. His economic initiatives, including the plea to make past tax cuts permanent, would mainly benefit the affluent. Instead, Bush has devoted his energies to selling a Social Security reform that the public views with deep suspicion. By a 2 to 1 margin, it thinks Bush’s proposals would not improve the long-run financial stability of Social Security, and nearly as many people think they would reduce the retirement income most seniors will receive.”
“A Growing Public Restlessness,” June 12, 2005.
It looks like orders came down from Party headquarters to all bloggers and columnists that the latest strategy is to trash talk the economy and, of course, blame George Bush.
Broder cites poll results of a questionable nature. Jobs are always hard to find, especially jobs equal or better to the ones we now have. When people say they did not have enough money for their health care needs, does this mean they had to borrow money to pay for a large procedure, or did they have to forgo some elective procedure, or did they not buy certain medications?
Social Security is interesting. When asked about “Bush’s plan”, people are against it 2 to 1, but when presented the same plan without
Bush’s name attached, people are for it 2 to 1. So the politics of personal destruction and “win at any cost” is working for the Democrats. Congratulations.
There’s no centralized plan to trash-talk the economy; it’s a non-fat-cat thing. Most Democrats are paycheck types or people who want and need to be paycheck types, and small-business people. The lopsided, sorry excuse for a recovery, the ravages of free trade and globalization, and the fact “job security” has become an oxymoron are facts of life they’ve been contending with for years, not altogether contentedly.
Bush policy is to stack the deck against them, in favor of the wealthy, powerful few, in every way at every opportunity. Nonwealthy Americans seem to finally be taking that as a serious threat. Better late than never.
As for your statement about people endorsing, 2 to 1, Bush’s plan to disembowel Social Security as long as his name is left out, the only evidence of that I’ve seen was back in March. Best I can recall it was from a relatively small sampling done by a think tank that’s part of the right-wing Republican propaganda industry. If you have documentation of that result from a recognizedmajor independent polling organization, I’d like to see it.
The other thought your factoid brings to mind is that the suspension of disbelief $200 million in Kerry-bashing propaganda could buy is quickly wearing off.
I see the $200 million in Kerry bashing
propaganda has had no effect on you. I guess
I need to donate even more next time.
That bit about social security was a
quick glance from a tag line in the daily
paper here. I don’t know the context. I
will suspend that, but I wanted to suggest
a counter point to Broder.
We run up against some large facts of
life in these discussions. As a general rule,
everyone thinks the cost of living is too
high, most people think the gov’t could be
more effective, that there is too much
corruption, the rich have too much, etc.
I will float as a working example the
building of the transcontinental railroad:
it had its share of corruption, overly enriched
speculators, shoddy workmanship, but the thing
got built and served the nation in spite of
its imperfections. The American economy
today is full of similiar imperfections, but
it delivers a standard of living above any
historical level. To campaign promising
improvements is fine and good, but some
parasitic loss is endemic.