Today's CNN poll should provide instructive for at least the Democrats serving on the Super Congress, and of course President Obama, who will have the ultimate decision on whether to accept their proposal, should they succeed in creating one. Republicans will get the message they want, since as Jed
pointed out the teabagger faction that rules them is the only group in the nation that thinks rich people shouldn't have to pay taxes. You can expect the six GOP members of the Catfood Commission II to run with that one.
For everyone else:
According to the poll, 63 percent say the super committee should call for increased taxes on higher-income Americans and businesses, with 36 percent disagreeing. And by a 57 to 40 percent margin they say the committee's deficit reduction proposal should include major cuts in domestic spending.
But cuts in defense spending get a mixed review: Forty-seven percent would like the committee to include major cuts in military spending, with 53 percent saying no to such cuts.
Nearly two-thirds say no to major changes to Social Security and Medicare. And nearly nine in ten don't want any increase in taxes on middle class and lower income Americans.[...]
According to the survey, only a third say that taxes on wealthy people should be kept low because higher-income Americans help create jobs, with 62 percent saying that taxes on the wealthy should be high so the government can use the money for programs to help lower-income Americans.
"That sentiment has changed little since the 1990s," adds Holland.
Again. The non-teabagger part of America is smart enough to know that the "job creators" myth is just that, a myth, same as it was when it was called "trickle down." It didn't work under Reagan. It didn't work under Bush. Continuing it any further won't work. Beltway Democrats now have the chance to catch up with the rest of the country and insist that a deal doesn't happen without higher taxes for the rich and preservation of key programs for everyone else.
Breaking the Republicans on that is the only hope we really have of "making room" for job creation. And that's the best hope this president and Democrats in Congress have in 2012.