How would you solve these problems?

[Tex]

Study: Public Sees Both Parties Cutting Deficits The Wrong Way


First Posted: 03/ 3/11 03:52 PM Updated: 03/ 3/11 07:06 PM
Important
Funny
Typical
Scary
Outrageous
Amazing
Innovative
Finally
Read More: 2012 Budget, Budget Polls, Deficit, Deficit Polls, Polling, Public Opinion, Politics News
share this story
895
48
120
1,176
Obama
Get Politics Alerts
Sign Up
Submit this story
digg reddit stumble

WASHINGTON -- If the public actually set the public agenda, we'd be cutting the deficit much differently than either the Democrats or the Republicans are proposing to do it.

That's according to a comparison of President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2012 budget proposal, the cuts for the remainder of fiscal 2011 proposed by House Republicans, and the results of an ingenious study of public opinion where a representative sample of Americans, asked how they would reduce their deficit, were presented with actual budget numbers and worked their way through a series of tradeoffs. (Try it yourself.)

While the details vary, the White House and Republican leaders both basically want to reduce the deficit by cutting social programs, preserving defense spending and raising taxes relatively little or not at all.

The public, by contrast, would do it primarily by cutting defense spending and imposing significantly higher and more progressive taxes on the rich -- while at the same time dramatically increasing spending in such areas as job training, higher education and humanitarian aid.

In other words, the public takes a considerably more humane view of spending than either party, is considerably less beholden to the military-industrial complex, and doesn't seem to care if the super-rich get a bit offended.

The study was the combined effort of a think tank, the Program for Public Consultation, and the polling firm Knowledge Networks. They presented an elaborate questionnaire to more than 2,000 respondents.

Given the goal of cutting the deficit, the average Americans did the job -- cutting it way more deeply, in fact, than either the Democratic or Republican proposals call for.

Ironically, the political subgroup that did the worst job was the slice of respondents who identified themselves as Tea Party sympathizers. They were the least likely to raise taxes and also the least likely, when faced with actual programs, to make cuts.
Story continues below
Advertisement

The next worst were Republicans, then Democrats.

Independents raised taxes more than Republicans (over $300 billion) and cut spending more than Democrats (nearly $200 billion), ultimately reducing the deficit by a whopping half a trillion dollars.

A major flaw with the study, however, was that it wasn't able to engage respondents in the biggest deficit-related challenge by far: slowing the increase in health spending.

But that can't be done simply by setting targets. That requires doing such things as cutting profit margins for Big Pharma, or reducing payments to specialists, or limiting insurance company profits or changing the incentives that make too many doctors treat patients like ATMs.

That's too complicated to present in terms of simple formulas.

In this study, the single biggest difference between the public and the current crop of elected officials came in the area of defense spending. At an event marking the rollout of the new comparison on Thursday, Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation, said many respondents were shocked to find out just how big the defense budget really is. (Imagine if they saw it calculated this way.)

They responded by cutting defense spending by an average of 18 percent, or about $109 billion per year. That's compared to the 4 percent increase being proposed by Obama and the 2 percent increase being proposed by House Republicans.

The respondents also called for $292 billion more in taxes, much of it coming from the rich -- about three times as much as Obama has proposed, and a far cry from the no-new-taxes mantra of the GOP.

What explains this huge gulf between what members of the the public see as common sense and what their democratically-elected representatives impose on them?

A lot of it can be explained by money. It's not a coincidence that elected officials support more defense spending, given the size and influence of the military-industrial lobby. Nor is it surprising that they are wary of increasing taxes on the people who pay for their campaigns.

By contrast, most of the things the public wants to spend more on -- job training, education, humanitarian aid, energy conservation and pollution control among them -- don't have wealthy corporate constituencies.

Kull had a somewhat more nuanced view of why the public seems to be able to solve problems, at least on paper, that officials are unable to.

"The political process involves leaders making commitments to groups," Kull said. Those groups help them get funding for their campaigns, and in the process, the elected officials "become very chrystalized, very committed to those positions," he said. These positions collide and compete in the legislative process, and what emerges is not the result of one comprehensive approach, but the result of many little battles.

"The average person is able to look at the problem in a holistic way," he said. "They are not committed to any position."

And while the superficial, emotional response is for people to say they are against either tax increases or budget cuts, when push comes to shove, they can see the need for both, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the anti-deficit Concord Coalition.

"When you do drill down and go beyond the surface reaction, the public is actually a great deal more rational that the polls give them credit for, and perhaps even more than politicians give them credit for," Bixby said.

Of course, if nobody listens, then it doesn't do any good.

"What's important is that this kind of information is communicated into the political discourse," Kull said. That way the image of the public's shallow, abstract responses -- against raising taxes, for instance -- isn't the governing one.

"Because there is another image of the public," Kull said, "which is how they respond in the intelligent, rational sense."
*************************

Dan Froomkin is senior Washington correspondent for the Huffington Post. You can send him an e-mail, bookmark his page; subscribe to his RSS feed, follow him on Twitter, friend him on Facebook, and/or become a fan and get e-mail alerts when he writes.

 

[Tex]

Mike, it wasn't my allegation so I don't know about that but here is an article on the Koch's:

REPORT: How Koch Industries Makes Billions By Demanding Bailouts And Taxpayer Subsidies (Part 1)

Koch Industries, the international conglomerate owned by Charles and David Koch, is not only the second largest private company in America, it is the most politically active. As ThinkProgress has carefully documented over the last three years, Koch groups have spent tens of millions to influence government policy — from financing the Tea Parties, to funding junk academic studies, to undisclosed attack ads against Democrats, to groups promoting climate change denial, to a large network of state-based and national think tanks. In an opinion column for the Wall Street Journal today, Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch fired back at his critics, who have grown more vocal as it has become clear that Koch groups are providing the political muscle for Gov. Scott Walker's (R-WI) union-busting power grab.

In his piece, Charles portrays himself as simply an ideological advocate, and says his money to political groups is only meant to "enhance true economic freedom." He chides special interests that have "successfully lobbied for special favors," claiming "crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market." But in reality, the focus of the Koch political machine is geared towards "crony capitalism" — corrupting government to make Charles and his brother David Koch richer. Koch's Tea Party libertarianism is actually a thin veneer for the company's long running history of winning special deals from the government and manipulating the market to pad Koch profits:

– The dirty secret of Koch Industries is its birth under the centrally-planned Soviet Union. Fred Koch, the founder of the company and father of David and Charles, helped construct fifteen oil refineries for Joseph Stalin before expanding the business in the United States.

– As Yasha Levine has reported, Koch exploits a number of government programs for profit. For instance, Georgia Pacific, a timber company subsidiary of Koch Industries, uses taxpayer money provided by the U.S. Forestry Service to provide their loggers with taxpayer-funded roads and access to virgin growth forests. "Logging companies such as Georgia-Pacific strip lands bare, destroy vast acreages and pay only a small fee to the federal government in proportion to what they take from the public," according to the Institute for Public Accuracy. Levine also notes that Koch's cattle ranching company, Matador Cattle Company, uses a New Deal program to profit off federal land for free.

– Koch Industries won massive government contracts using their close relationship with the Bush administration. The Bush administration, in a deal even conservatives alleged was a quid pro quo because of Koch's campaign donations, handed Koch Industries a lucrative contract to supply the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve with 8 million barrels of crude oil. The SPR deal, done initially in 2002, was renewed in 2004 by Bush administration officials. During the occupation of Iraq, Koch won significant contracts to buy Iraqi crude oil.

– Although Koch campaigned vigorously against health reform — running attack ads, sponsoring anti-health reform Tea Parties, and comparing health reform to the Holocaust — Koch Industries applied for health reform subsidies made possible by the Obama administration.

– The Koch brothers have claimed that they oppose government intervention in the market, but Koch Industries lobbies aggressively for taxpayer handouts. In Alaska, blogger Andrew Halcro reported that a Koch subsidiary in Fairbanks asked Gov. Sarah Palin's administration to use taxpayer money to bail out one of their failing refinery.

– SolveClimate recently reported that Koch Industries will reap huge profits from the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, which runs from Koch-owned tar sands mining centers in Canada to Koch-owned refineries in Texas. To build the pipeline, politicians throughout the Midwest, many of whom have received large Koch campaign donations, have used eminent domain — government seizures of private land. In Kansas, where Koch-funded officials advise Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and the Republican legislature, the Keystone XL Pipeline is likely to receive a property tax exemption of ten years, a special loophole that will cost Kansas taxpayers about $50 million.

– Koch Industries has been the recipient of about $85 million in federal government contracts mostly from the Department of Defense. Koch also benefits directly from billions in taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and ethanol production.

Charles has compared himself to a libertarian "Martin Luther," evangelizing to the world for their supply side cause. However, the tens of millions in campaign donations and the dozens of front groups funded by Koch work in tandem to promoting the business interests of Koch Industries.

Koch funds both socially conservative groups and socially liberal groups. However, Koch's financing of front groups and political organizations all have one thing in common: every single Koch group attacks workers' rights, promotes deregulation, and argues for radical supply side economics. Not only do the Koch's front groups pad Koch Industries' bottom line, they supply the Koch brother's talking points. In fact, for his opinion piece today, Charles heavily relied on front groups he finances for statistics. The "freedom index" cited by Charles is a creation of the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation, and the erroneous "unfunded liabilities" claim was supplied by the Koch-funded National Center for Policy Analysis.

I don't think billionaires should be asking for corporate welfare for themselves while at the same time not supporting welfare for citizens.

It kind of cancels itself out, don't you think?

This is a quote I picked up from someone who is obviously interested in the poultry biz side of the Koch brother's funding:


"walt moffett says:
September 9, 2010 at 9:38 pm

I'd worry more about the National Turkey Foundation and National Poultry Council donations. He is obviously in the hands of Big Poultry.

On a more serious note, while this will displease many progressive contributors, they need to realize if they want a Democrat from the district, realpolitik, is the only game."




Personally I don't know all the Koch's ways of influencing govt. to tilt things in their direction. It all comes from articles like the one above. They are heavy contributors to be able to influence those they contribute to. For instance, they contribute a LOT to NPR and are named contributors on many programs. They also influence, I think, what kind of reporting or show content goes into other shows on NPR. This comes from a conclusion based on what a conversation who has a show on NPR. I don't think you will find that kind of thing in any Open Secrets site---those are the Closed Secrets.



Tex