America The Sane

Sometimes it's useful to check polls on more general subjects to take the temperature of the general population and see whether the insanity of the political debate has taken hold.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index classifies Americans as either "thriving","struggling" or "suffering",according to how they rate their current and futures lives. Fewer Americans rated their lives postively in July than in any other month of the year so far. Americans want no deficits and they want 4% unemployment and 5% GDP growth even though they know these things are mutually exclusive. Americans polled know that the government has no ready solutions and are acutely aware that their goals may be years or even a generation away.

30% of Americans now see the economy as the number 1 issue. 28% view unemployment and jobs are the issue. 12% view dissatisfaction with government/ Congress/ politicians as the issue.

Only 7% view the deficit or the national debt as a major issue. The same percent applies to immigration or illegal aliens. Only 4% fear war. And only 5% believe our nation faces an ethical, moral or religious decline.

One party in particular is amplifying the deficit and debt, illegal aliens and moral decline. And these concerns are far outside the mainstream.

The Democracy Corps and Greenberg Research conducted a poll for the Campaign for America's Future and SEIU. The poll wanted to assess voter attitudes toward deficit reduction, Social Security and Medicare as well as future policy options for job creation,

* 68 percent said they would oppose making major spending cuts in Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit, while 28% would. Those opposed included 61% of Republicans and 56% of independents.

*63% back lifting the Social Security cap on incomes higher than $107,000. (The McColm solution.) 64% would favor eliminating tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs; 62% would support a tax on excessive Wall Street bank profits.

*65% oppose raising the Social Security age to 70; 65% oppose replacing Medicare with a private sector voucher; 62% oppose a 3 percent federal sales tax (which I support); 60% oppose raising the Medicare age from 65 to 67.

*52% support a message that embraces the need for both investments in our future and reduce the deficit over time; than a message that only stresses cuts in spending (42%). An equal percentage were favorable toward "a plan to invest in new industries and rebuild the country over the next five years (60%) and "a plan to dramatically reduce the deficit over five years" (61%).

62% support more federal aid to states once they understand this comes in the context of states laying off teachers, first responders and other essential workers due to recession. This includes 55% of independents and 48% of Republicans. The poll I quoted in an earlier post had 60% of Americans supporting the recent bill of aid to states--even though they were not told it was paid for.

60% responded favorably to an economic message that said that "we have a budget deficit but .. we also have a massive public investment deficit" that requires us to "rebuild the infrastructure that is vital to our economy" and to the economic growth that "will generate revenues to help pay down the budget deficit". This message tested better than any other progressive or conservative messages on spending cuts.

Another poll was conducted on how border towns perceived their safety in light of immigration. I will write more about this later. But the bottom line is border towns had a higher perception of safety than in other urban areas in America. I guess they accept all the beheadings.