A plurality of Americans are down with Ryan’s Medicare reforms:
The CBS News/New York Times poll is thought to skew a little to the left due to its tendency to oversample Democrats. That’s why Washington insiders sat up and took notice on Good Friday, when the poll reported that a plurality of Americans actually approve of GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reforms.
A startling 47% approved of changing Medicare from a program in which the government “pays doctors and hospitals for treating seniors” to a program in which the government “helps seniors purchase private health insurance.” Only 41% disagreed.
Polling results can vary dramatically based on many factors, including question wording. A recent Washington Post/ABC News survey found 65% opposing the Ryan voucher plan. But the Post’s wording makes it sound as if current retirees would have their Medicare benefits changed, even though Mr. Ryan’s plan exempts anyone 55 years of age or older. That is a key difference that may account for the polling variation. Other surveys that more closely follow the Times’ wording indicate a plurality of Americans back the Ryan approach.
The Times poll contains other data that should worry President Obama if he continues to demagogue the House-passed GOP budget. By 55% to 33%, Americans prefer a smaller government with fewer services to a bigger government with more services. That basic 3-to-2 ratio — indicating this is a center-right nation — has prevailed for a quarter-century.
Similarly, by 2-to-1 Americans would rather cut spending on programs that benefit them than see their taxes go up. Even when it comes to Medicare spending, respondents in the Times poll say they are “willing” to reduce Medicare spending, by a 48% to 45% plurality.
Mr. Obama thought that his attacks on the Ryan budget would rally his liberal base and help scare voters away from any meaningful entitlement reform. So far, the evidence that his strategy is working is scant, and Republicans appear to have a solid core of support to build on.
Fortunately for Obama, John Boehner and Eric Cantor lead the House.
And no stupid polls will keep them from backing down to the President when an opportunity presents itself.
They have an image to upkeep, after all.
[h/t Terry H, who notes in an email, “The deficit is so big and the spending increases of the past 3 years are so large they cannot be glossed over by some bullshit poll. All the Rethuglicans have to do is reduce the issue to a simple, understandable message.” Like, for instance, this:
Terry’s right. Just keep pointing to the graph; never miss an opportunity to show it off, and simultaneously say the words that the Ryan plan doesn’t effect folks 55 and older. It will work, despite Boehner and Cantor.
And for folks that can’t savvy graphs, take a moment and explain to them what it’s showing them; like pointing details out in a photo.
Then there’s Gallup today:
So much for scaring Grandma in voting for Obama with visions of Alpo.
That’s an encouraging development Pablo, especially since Gallup method of polling all voters tends to often unintentionally skew the results a bit more left that the voting public.
It means both that their rhetoric hasn’t worked thusfar, and we’ll hear the shrewish Ms. Wasserman-Schultz asserting that Ryan wants Grandma and Grandpa to hurry up and die a lot more frequently.
In fact, I expect we’ll see her often; so sad to say.
Ryan polls well because he actually says something. Just wait, between the democrats and the pragmatists, they’ll dig up something on that poor guy.
I suspect Gingrich will let something slip on Hannity. “I think the Path to Prosperity is a good start and reminds me of when we took Congress back in ’94, and the chronic masturbation is almost totally under control with the medication, so yes, I do like Paul Ryan.” It’ll never come up again, but for some reason there will be a bottle of Jergens in the background of every picture of the guy. Seriously, Ryan should be number one on the list of contenders, but we’re talking Trump.
Ooop, whattaya know, Wikipedia: “When Ryan was sixteen his father died of a heart attack at age 55. Ryan began collecting his Social Security survivor’s benefits until age eighteen, which he saved for college tuition and expenses.” HYPOCRITE!!!!11! Nice try at a dig there, that’ll come up on MSNBC. He’s Catholic too… and a frat boy… and his wife’s a tax attorney!! So he’s a hypocritical rapist who supports an organization that condones pedophilia married to a corporate blood sucker destined to make a fortune off of any changes to the tax code.
Except, of course, those benefits were paid to his mother, not him, since he was a minor at the time.
Other polls seem to show something different, even though something needs to be done about the problem.
“POLL REVEALS: Americans Are Still In Deep Denial About The Deficit” http://read.bi/h6QDGR If they realized how bad it is politicians would need to act. Non politics-junkies tune out numbers in the $trillions so we need to rephrase the issue:
The federal government will need >$1 million per household to pay its IOUs!
> $116 trillion =”official” debt plus money short for future social security, medicare, etc
Even its “official debt” of $14.2 trillion is $123,754 per household!
Details at http://StopNationalDebt.com with links to contact congress & complain.
Be among the first to join the new Facebook cause “Stop National Debt” : http://www.causes.com/causes/606425-stop-national-debt
since if you don’t spread the word, who will?
For “explaining things to idiots” purposes, that graph needs to be accompanied by the graph showing that since WWII, no matter what the government does with the tax code, it only ever brings in around 19% of GDP in revenue.
Because without that key bit of info, some might say: “Okay, so Obama wants to spend 24% of GDP, and Ryan wants to spend 20%, in the long term. So let’s spend 24% and keep all the goodies. Maybe 24% is the ‘right’ size for the Govt.”
And they’d be sort of right. It’s not the size of the Govt. that’s going to kill us immediately (though obviously it’s a bad thing in and of itself, for a host of more esoteric, and harder-to-explain-to-idiots reasons), it’s the huge, unsustainable difference between spending and revenue that spell our DOOM.
I think I’ll draw an arrow next to the red line, labeled “TOO MUCH,” and an arrow next to the black line labeled “WAY TOO MUCH,” and an arrow next to the green line labeled “YOU GOTTA BE EFFIN’ KIDDING ME!”
“Poppa bear, Mama bear, itty-bitty baby bear”, maybe…