Poll on handling fiscal cliff: 52% Obama, 27% GOP

[Skjellyfetti]

Are y'all still gonna dismiss polls as having a huge liberal bias like y'all did all summer (even though they nailed the election)?

[SDHornet]

On one of the network nightly news channels, it listed 41% as not understanding what the fiscal cliff is...so anyone with a clue would take these blame polls as a completely meaningless statistic.

[BlueHen86]

Of course people are going to blame the GOP.
60% of Americans side with Obama and want taxes on the rich to be raised.
My guess is that the 60% who side with Obama don't consider themselves to be rich, so they are saying that they want Obama to tax someone else in order to fix the problem.

[Chizzang]

Of course people are going to blame the GOP.
60% of Americans side with Obama and want taxes on the rich to be raised.
My guess is that the 60% who side with Obama don't consider themselves to be rich, so they are saying that they want Obama to tax someone else in order to fix the problem.

Most Americans don't understand that TAXATION is not the problem...
There's piles and piles of Tax Revenue collected by the federal government
For the 100th time: We have a spending problem not a revenue problem

[AZGrizFan]

Of course people are going to blame the GOP.
60% of Americans side with Obama and want taxes on the rich to be raised.
My guess is that the 60% who side with Obama don't consider themselves to be rich, so they are saying that they want Obama to tax someone else in order to fix the problem.

That's too deep for analjelly.

[AZGrizFan]

Of course people are going to blame the GOP.
60% of Americans side with Obama and want taxes on the rich to be raised.
My guess is that the 60% who side with Obama don't consider themselves to be rich, so they are saying that they want Obama to tax someone else in order to fix the problem.

Most Americans don't understand that TAXATION is not the problem...
There's piles and piles of Tax Revenue collected by the federal government
For the 100th time: We have a spending problem not a revenue problem

Also too deep for analjelly.

[CAA Flagship]

Most Americans don't understand that TAXATION is not the problem...
There's piles and piles of Tax Revenue collected by the federal government
For the 100th time: We have a spending problem not a revenue problem

Also too deep for analjelly.

Was that double penetration?

[89Hen]

Are y'all still gonna dismiss polls as having a huge liberal bias like y'all did all summer (even though they nailed the election)?

Wouldn't it be more prudent to compare the Dem leaders to the GOP leaders? Looking at those numbers all it's telling me is Dems are sheep.

[ASUG8]

For every dollar in additional revenue collected (regardless of the source) spending will increase AT LEAST by a factor of 1.5. Guaranteed.

[UNI88]

For every dollar in additional revenue collected (regardless of the source) spending will increase AT LEAST by a factor of 1.5. Guaranteed.

Actually that might not be true...

Higher taxes, lower spending?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/colu ... 434.column" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Under Bill Clinton, income tax rates rose. In fact, his critics reviled him for enacting "the biggest tax increase in American history." Yet the tax hike did not open the spending floodgates. In inflation-adjusted terms, federal outlays grew very slowly, and as a share of the economy, they shrank dramatically — to 18.2 percent from 21.4 percent, about what they were during the Eisenhower administration.

Why did that happen? Not because Clinton was a tightfisted Scrooge eager to dismantle big government, but because congressional Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, forced him into an agreement to balance the budget, which required constraints on spending.

Most conservatives are of the "starve the beast" school, which says that if you deprive the government of revenue by cutting taxes, it will be forced to shrink. That would be true if the government couldn't spend money it doesn't have. In fact, it does so year in and year out. There is no point cutting off a wayward teen's allowance if he still has your credit card.

In 2006, a study published by the late economist William Niskanen debunked this theory of spending dynamics. Niskanen, who was President Reagan's chief economist and chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, looked at the historical data and found that revenue increases actually curtailed spending growth. Revenue reductions, however, caused it to accelerate — the exact opposite of what Norquist claims.

University of Alabama political scientist Michael New later took another look at the evidence and confirmed those findings. "Like Niskanen, I find statistically significant evidence that low levels of federal revenues actually stimulate expenditure growth," he wrote in the Cato Journal in 2009.

It's not hard to see why. Americans are more likely to support a bigger federal budget if they don't have to pay the full cost each year. Tax cuts allow us to get $100 worth of programs and services for only $80. As with any commodity, price discounts increase consumption. Tax increases force us to pay something closer to the real cost of government, which dampens demand for it.

[GannonFan]

Nothing surprising about this at all. The GOP has a losing argument at this moment - people hate the rich (or whatever you want to call people making $200k or more). It's been that way since the recession in '08, it was clearly on display in this year's election, and it's still the case today. People hate the rich. Plain and simple.

I said it in another thread, the GOP's best option right now, to take this easy argument away from the Dems, is to let the Dems pass a tax hike on the rich (doesn't need a single vote for it in the Senate from the GOP and the House GOP can give enough votes needed to help the minority Dems there to pass it). Don't do anything else, and just pass this tax hike onto the rich. Since our problems go far beyond whatever revenue this tax hike will get us, it will push us to the next step of the process and then the GOP can say "hey, we passed the tax hike on the rich like you wanted and it didn't help" and they can stop trying to run against this public opinion.

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

[89Hen]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

Keeping up With the Kardashians
Big Rich Texas
Real Housewives of...
Family Jewels
Cribs

[CAA Flagship]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

Keeping up With the Kardashians
Big Rich Texas
Real Housewives of...
Family Jewels
Cribs

.........that is the tip of the iceberg.

The list is short on the other side:
Sanford & Son
Good Times
All in the Family
Married With Children
Roseanne
Honeymooners

[Gil Dobie]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

Keeping up With the Kardashians
Big Rich Texas
Real Housewives of...
Family Jewels
Cribs

They like the liberal celebrity rich

[GannonFan]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

Keeping up With the Kardashians
Big Rich Texas
Real Housewives of...
Family Jewels
Cribs

I said they hate them within the context that they want to tax them more and take their money. IMO, I think the advent of those shows and a latent desire to heavily tax the rich are not coincidental. People certainly like watching those shows, and from those shows they think all the rich are like the Kardashians, hence the desire to tax them more. They make for great tv (for those who watch).

[TheDancinMonarch]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

People used to want to be rich but they discovered that that was too much work. So they decided that they would just use the government to steal from the rich, thereby making us all poor.

[AZGrizFan]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

People used to want to be rich but they discovered that that was too much work. So they decided that they would just use the government to steal from the rich, thereby making us all poor.

People are

[Chizzang]

Remember, people hate the rich. Anything you do has to be with that in mind.

People used to want to be rich but they discovered that that was too much work. So they decided that they would just use the government to steal from the rich, thereby making us all poor.

Meh...
Depending on who you believe about 50% of America's wealthy inherited their money to a LARGE degree
Obama (Unlike Romney or Bush) actually embodies more of the American dream than any Republican in office

But I see your point...

[Gil Dobie]

Meh...
Depending on who you believe about 50% of America's wealthy inherited their money to a LARGE degree
Obama (Unlike Romney or Bush) actually embodies more of the American dream than any Republican in office

But I see your point...

Round 2

Michelle Bachmann had strangly a similar background to Obama growing up, broken family, raised by her mother who worked in a bank. Neither were silver spoons. I don't support either one, but their backgrounds are similar.

[89Hen]

People used to want to be rich but they discovered that that was too much work. So they decided that they would just use the government to steal from the rich, thereby making us all poor.

Meh...
Depending on who you believe about 50% of America's wealthy inherited their money to a LARGE degree
Obama (Unlike Romney or Bush) actually embodies more of the American dream than any Republican in office

But I see your point...

That's quite a claim. You seem to have a history of making good points and not stopping there.

[Chizzang]

Meh...
Depending on who you believe about 50% of America's wealthy inherited their money to a LARGE degree
Obama (Unlike Romney or Bush) actually embodies more of the American dream than any Republican in office

But I see your point...

That's quite a claim. You seem to have a history of making good points and not stopping there.

That's my specialty

[polsongrizz]

Are y'all still gonna dismiss polls as having a huge liberal bias like y'all did all summer (even though they nailed the election)?

Wouldn't it be more prudent to compare the Dem leaders to the GOP leaders? Looking at those numbers all it's telling me is Dems are sheep.

Because the right totally understands the whole situation...

[TheDancinMonarch]

People used to want to be rich but they discovered that that was too much work. So they decided that they would just use the government to steal from the rich, thereby making us all poor.

Meh...
Depending on who you believe about 50% of America's wealthy inherited their money to a LARGE degree.

Yes and they, D and R, have politicians, D and R to protect them from taxation so that they can maintain their wealth.

[89Hen]

Because the right totally understands the whole situation...

Because there is a 50% spread between Ind. and Dem. when it comes to giving Dem leaders a good grade, and considering a majority of people who ID themseleves are Dems in disguise, this is a big number.

[CitadelGrad]

People used to want to be rich but they discovered that that was too much work. So they decided that they would just use the government to steal from the rich, thereby making us all poor.

Meh...
Depending on who you believe about 50% of America's wealthy inherited their money to a LARGE degree
Obama (Unlike Romney or Bush) actually embodies more of the American dream than any Republican in office

But I see your point...

Not really. Obama made his money from writing ostensibly autobiographical books, shaking down and suing businesses and Michelle's well-paid no-show job at a Chicago hospital.