A new Pew poll shows Americans are growing increasingly disenchanted with the new Congress.
Poll: Public already losing patience with new Congress
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTONN — Once again, the public is getting increasingly disgusted with Washington.
It sees a failure to adopt remedies for even the most basic, pressing issues of the day, as Congress struggles to craft a federal budget. And incumbents are getting worried about the political implications.
Pew surveyed 1,525 adults from March 8-14. The poll's findings suggest the political losers so far have been Republicans, who rode a wave of voter irritation to win control of the House of Representatives last fall.
Pew Poll.
A modest plurality (41%) says that if the federal government makes major spending cuts to reduce the deficit, these reductions will not have much of an effect on the job situation. Among those who see the cuts have an impact, nearly twice as many say they will hurt (34%) rather than help (18%) the job situation
So together 75% think major spending cuts will either not have much of an effect, or hinder job creation. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the approach the Republicans are insisting on, drastic spending cuts.
About as many Republicans say deep spending cuts will hurt (27%) as help (25%) the job situation; a plurality (41%) sees them having a negligible impact.
Even 68% of Republicans doubt the cuts will create jobs. The Republicans' cuts are driven more by their doctrinaire ideology to slash functions of government the Far Right abhors than by pragmatism.
The Public has watched the newly empowered Republicans in the Congress' as their radical agenda emerged with the G.O.P. attacking an array of Right Wing bugaboos from the E.P.A. to N.P.R. to Green Energy, to Tsunami Early Warning. Charging at windmills by trying to repeal Health Care Reform.
Now Republicans are cravenly attacking financial reform at the behest of their sponsors the Big Banks on Wall Street who find the modest new financial reforms an intolerable impediment to a wide open casino in the derivatives market generating astronomical profits, while increasing the risks to the larger economy.
Cap it off with the Republican frenzy to attack Social Security. Just think of it. Young Americans would work 2 extra years just so the Republicans can keep raising the cap on income subject to social security taxes off of the table.
Then there's the Economy. The Republicans haven't lifted a finger to create any jobs and people know it. That is starting to worry some Republicans who are instructing the GOP's elected officials to start generating empty blather about creating jobs.
GOP works to link cuts to jobs
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn said there was concern that Republicans weren’t emphasizing the jobs issue in their rhetoric.
Republicans have struggled to gain significant traction on that message, since the two parties are engaged in a major battle over federal spending. GOP leaders — particularly in the House — have had their hands full in recent weeks in trying to satisfy a relentless band of conservatives eager for a major confrontation with the White House over spending, an issue they believe helped propel them to victory last November.
This poll shows the public isn't buying the Republicans' empty blather on job creation.