by Rebecca Cole
With Congress embroiled in a debate over whether spending or tax cuts are a better strategy for creating jobs, a slight majority of Americans favor government funding over a direct infusion to corporate budgets or individual wallets with tax cuts, according to a new Gallup Poll.
Fifty percent of those surveyed said that increased funding of infrastructure improvements and other projects was a better approach; 42 percent preferred tax cuts.
Not surprisingly, poll results broke down into party lines, with 63 percent of those identifying themselves as Democrats more likely to view increased spending as a better approach. Sixty-six percent of Republicans felt the opposite, citing tax cuts for individuals and businesses as the best way to drive job growth.
The poll also asked which of eight proposals people felt were most important. Educational aid led the list, with 56 percent responding that money for education is one of the most important measures to include in the stimulus bill. Yet at 51 percent, tax cuts for individuals and families came in at a close second.
Conducted over the weekend as news of the debate over President Barack Obama's stimulus bill saturated the airwaves, the poll reflected the narrow gap in the debate between spending or tax relief as the correct approach.
The Senate version of the bill ready for approval this week includes more tax breaks than the House version, including a $70 billion cut in the alternative-minimum tax, a $35 billion break to help jump-start home sales and $11 billion for car buyers to write off the interest on their loans.
The Senate version also strips out much of the education funding allotted in the House bill, cutting $16 billion for K-12 school construction, $1 billion from Head Start programs and $40 billion from a $79 billion proposal to help states defray education costs.
Comments
Just as we saw with his speech this morning, Obama is doing very well when it comes to public opinion and Congressional Republicans/Obstructionists are not. And the WH is certainly going to be highlighting that as the corporate media tries their best to hide how discredited Republicans are with the public
Posted by: Doug Vader, son of Darth | February 9, 2009 5:39 PM
The New Deal of the 1930s that Obama so proudly emulates was, in-fact, a colossal economic failure. FDR never achieved an unemployment level under 14%… and averaged 17% over his presidency.
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FDR’s own Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau stated in 1939:
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“We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it DOES NOT WORK… We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started... and an enormous debt to boot!”
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Contrast this with the Reagan Recovery of the 1980s, which brought us back from 11% unemployment (50% worse than today), plus double-digit inflation AND interest rates.He accomplished this with an adherence to Friedman's philosophy- with spending cuts and tax cuts, in addition to deregulation and incentives for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
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Reagan created over 20M jobs…growing the country’s real GDP by almost 30% in the process. Those kind of results makes one wonder why Obama’s trillion-dollar spending plan would impress ANY-body, with his pledged 4M new and “saved” jobs (whatever those are)… a paltry figure 16M jobs shy of The Gipper’s towering accomplishment.
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Apparently the irony is lost on Barack that a unemployed Silicon Valley engineer should be delighted to pour cement in "patriotic" make-work programs, instead of tax-incentives to help entrepeneurial enterprises leverage his skills a bit more effectively.
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http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2008/12/biden-runs-interferrence-for-big.html
Posted by: Reaganite Republican | February 9, 2009 5:53 PM
Reagan also left us with massive debt, RR. Just as the right made a concerted effort to rebuild the legacy of President Reagan (totally ignoring Iran-Contra) they now are engaged in revisionist history and trying to undercut FDR. We're not buying it.
Posted by: Flo | February 9, 2009 6:07 PM
Reaganomics created the mess we are in today.
Cheap debt, deunionizing, deindustrialization, tax cuts for the rich.
We are witnessing the death of Reaganomics. Of course the Republicans will try to preserve it as the 'undead Reganomics' as long as they can. The liquidation of the middle and working class is not yet complete. There are still some billions in wealth to acquire.
Beware the compromised Senate bill. It's giving the Republicans everything they want, but they will vote against it anyway. Then when it fails to lift the economy they can blame the Dems.
Posted by: C.Morris✈ | February 9, 2009 6:34 PM
A $35 billion break to help jump-start home sales?
$11 billion for car buyers to write off the interest on their loans?
People cannot qualify for mortgages or car loans because credit is so tight. How do theses tax write-offs free up credit?
Posted by: What are my kids buying and for whom? | February 9, 2009 7:18 PM
Popular 80's quote;
'Yeah, Ronnie created millions of jobs and I have three of them'.
I remember his solution for deindustrialization was 'retrain for the service economy'.
That meant WalMart jobs all around.
Posted by: C.Morris✈ | February 9, 2009 7:21 PM
Ronnie Raygun....jobs for all Americans who deserve them. I will tell you who that is....... I will critizise the government and double the budget.
Posted by: bill r. | February 9, 2009 8:20 PM
I wonder how long it's going to take the Repuglicans to realize that their rigid ideology is outdated, decrepit and a failure of historical proportions?
The real Republican problem with government jobs is that those are mostly union jobs. More government jobs = stronger unions. And not just government jobs. Obama has made it clear that people who get government contracts to build roads and bridges and schools will not be allowed to treat their employees like worn out clothes. He might be giving all these contracts to union employees. Oh noes!
The Grand Obstructionist Party cannot stand the idea of a working middle class that is able to bargain for a better life for themselves. I don't know if they love America or not, but they clearly cannot stand Americans. Repuglican hero Ronny Raygun led the charge against government jobs and job holders as not being part of the work force...
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Which is Stupid - especially since Raygun himself was on the govt payroll for soooo many years.
Posted by: Reagan was a Fraud and a Failure | February 9, 2009 8:23 PM
Republican administrations are a historical FAILURE.
Republicans should be sued for fraud every time they try to sell themselves as "fiscal conservatives" from now on.
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http://media.photobucket.com/image/surplus/smokydoggg/surplus.jpg?o=6
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Posted by: Reagan was a Fraud and a Failure | February 9, 2009 8:35 PM
Some of the conservative posters here are probably the 80's 'kids' that are paying off the Reagan debt.
Yet they aren't complaining about that.
And just think; Clinton started to pay down that Reagan debt, but GWB stepped in just in time to stop that nonsense, hey?
Posted by: OldCreaky | February 9, 2009 9:33 PM
The Republican's say things like cutting taxes leaves money in the pockets of the people and we can trust them to spend it the way they want and that will fix the economy. We have huge problems that actually do need intelligent government intervention that targets spending in ways that increase jobs and stimulates the economy. Thinking that tax payers with more money in their pockets is the answer is naive and idealistic and has never worked. It sounds nice but has very little depth of thought behind it.
Posted by: Jim Dandy | February 10, 2009 12:21 AM
While the FDA programs may be deemed unsuccessful, a lot of Americans were put to work building and maintaining out nation's infrastructure - the last time such a massive effort was undertaken. Major cities, like here in Chicago, haven't seen infrastructure overhaul/maintenance since the FDA. If you put billions towards the infrastructure, you will alleviate some of the pain that the States are already feeling with their budgets.
I remain skeptical that such a process could be doled out fairly. Daley and DeLeo will still find ways to put Federal money into the hands of their friends and connected insiders. Dem 2000 convention brought Iron fences and concrete plant-potters/lane dividers down Madison Ave, and Daley's friends got the contracts and overbilled.
Tax cuts would also be welcome, but the check that I received last year went directly to the Gas bill and the Electric bill. These utilities have increased prices 50% in the last 3 years, and my dollars don't go as far anymore. What will tax cuts do for me? Better yet, what will tax cuts do for the unemployed and about to be unemployed? They need jobs.
Cutting taxes won't create demand. This economic recession is global. We're leveraged to the wall with China, and Europe has its own economic problems. Will tax cuts suddenly bring back 20,000 GM jobs? Will tax cuts make people suddenly want to go out and buy GM cars? If you put people to work through FDA style job creation, and offer incentives/breaks to the auto-manufacturers, you could tie an auto-purchase/finance to get that new worker to his/her job.
Posted by: karl | February 10, 2009 11:22 AM
Reagan Republicans are like Pavlovian dogs any time they hear the term "tax cuts".
One more item left off the Ronnie Raygun historical rewrite; the AIDS epidemic that he dragged his feet responding to as millions of people were dying. All in the name of ✞.
Such an ugly cast the repukes choose to lionize.
Posted by: Haywood Jablome | February 10, 2009 12:00 PM
Democrats really hated those tax cuts. Reagan ended the Cold War of 40 years, as we knew it, and at some co$t. Bush 41 saw the Berlin War torn down and recovered the sovereign country of Kuwait for the people of Kuwait, at some co$t. Clinton had y'all out there baking cookies in order to retire a 2.5 - 4 trillion $ National debt, whatever it was, incurred by Reagan and by Bush. That's a lot of damn cookies.
Is it not possible though, for democrats to ever see the big picture? Germany, free, united, not in war mode, for the 1st time since forever, Kuwait, regained freedom, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, dissolved, a lesser military threat than before, not free as we may know it, but in a seemingly better place then they have ever been prior. Would like to assume that a less powerful Marxist country is not too much of a negative situation for most democrats.
Is any of this not of some value to the stability of the world, in the eyes of democrats? This was a small step to that magical Land of Manna. Utopia, that is what you democrats want, right?
If the UN could have done any of the Reagan-Bush USSR-Germany-Kuwait work, would it have been acceptable? This would actually be my one and only non-rhetorical question for democrats that don't like debt, an admirable quality, but love taxes, which is fine particularly if you are never the ones to pay them. The more recent Obama appointees have certainly shed a lot of new light on that.
Posted by: Django - N Exile somewhere in/around the 30th Parallel | February 10, 2009 6:25 PM
Cool! Nice topic. Thanks for posting and giving information.
Posted by: Government Jobs | February 11, 2009 12:37 AM