As usual, the latest Pew survey has a lot of interesting data to chew over. The finding that the gap between what self-identified Republicans say they want and what self-identified Democrats say they want is interesting. But that, to me, makes points where you see a relatively large amount of consensus all the more interesting.
For example, every Republican from George Bush to John Boehner to Mitch McConnel to Mitt Romney to John McCain will tell you that the absolute first thing the country needs to do is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. After all, doing so will put a ton of money in the hands of extremely rich people and making sure that the rich get richer is, according to Republicans, the very essence of good government.
But it seems that among rank-and-file voters, not even a majority of self-identified Republicans can bring themselves to believe that bringing a little extra-relief to America's long-suffering super-wealthy ought to be a top priority.
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Heads in the Sand
The saddest thing is that the three of the four most important priorities to democrats are economic problems in which the government has very little ability to make any substantial change.
The government can make tax cuts permanent, but it can't improve the job situation. I don't think it can even do anything about the economy. If it could, we'd never have a recession or have had to watch high-paying factory jobs move overseas.
Posted by Helter | January 25, 2008 11:31 AM