LibriumArcana.Games

Posted: **Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:40 pm**

(Reuters) - The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country's debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America's international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase

The poll underscores the tough task ahead for U.S. lawmakers as the debt nears its current ceiling of $14.3 trillion. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week warned that a failure to raise the borrowing limit in the coming months could lead to "catastrophic economic consequences".

Republicans, who won control of the House of Representatives in November on a promise to scale back government, hope to pair any debt-ceiling hike with a commitment from President Barack Obama to reduce long-term spending.

Republicans have vowed to slash $60 billion from the budget as soon as March, but many of those cuts are not likely to be popular with the public.

WHAT TO CUT?

Only 24 percent say the country can afford to cut back on education spending, a likely Republican target, and 21 percent support cuts to law enforcement.

With the Pentagon fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 51 percent supported cutbacks to military spending.

Less than half, 45 percent, support an expected Republican effort to pare environmental enforcement.

Some 53 percent support cutting the budgets of financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, in spite of the widespread consensus that a lax regulatory atmosphere contributed to the devastating financial crisis of 2007-2009.

And 47 percent support cutbacks to national parks, which were shuttered for several weeks during the budget battles of 1995 and 1996.

Expensive benefit programs that account for nearly half of all federal spending enjoy widespread support, the poll found. Only 20 percent supported paring Social Security retirement benefits while a mere 23 supported cutbacks to the Medicare health-insurance program.

Some 73 percent support scaling back foreign aid and 65 percent support cutting back on tax collection.

The poll of 1,021 U.S. adults was conducted between Friday and Monday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

So... are we talking about a failure of the education system? Has the right wing been just that effective in messaging? Is the very phrase "debt ceiling" fraught with negative connotations that it just causes the front of the brain to shut down?

Discuss.

Edit: For comparison:

Total national deficit for 2010 = ~1.3 trillion dollars
Total national debt: Closing in on 14 trillion.

---

National Park budget: 3 billion/yr (0.23% of deficit)
SEC budget: ~1 billion/yr (0.07% of deficit)
Foreign Aid: ~23 billion/yr (1.7% of deficit)

Posted: **Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:50 pm**

I've seen that those who introduce an issue are able to frame the debate effectively about that issue, most of the time.

The effects of this were seen during the whole healthcare debate, during the "tax cuts for the rich" debate, and now for raising the debt ceiling.

However, I think this is a consequence about the rather shrill way in which issues are discussed, where those who disagree with the issue, or the way in which it is framed for whatever reason are ridiculed or demonized, instead of debated with.

Basically, it leads with either agreeing with someone about a viewpoint, or thinking they hate America. This has predictable effects of discussion of issues.

Posted: **Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:54 pm**

I think part of the problem is that the right has been very successful at framing issues of government debt as being analogous to household debt, with the same causes and solutions. It seems to be the centerpoint of every speech - "American families tighten their belts when they go into debt, we need to do the same and stop spending."

One has to admit they've really nailed messaging.

Posted: **Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:57 pm**

Derek Thunder wrote:I think part of the problem is that the right has been very successful at framing issues of government debt as being analogous to household debt, with the same causes and solutions. It seems to be the centerpoint of every speech - "American families tighten their belts when they go into debt, we need to do the same and stop spending."

One has to admit they've really nailed messaging.

It's nearly become a trope that the Right is excellent at messaging but nearly wholeheartedly rooting for only the rich, whereas the Left is terrible at messaging, supposedly roots for the little guy but usually ends up giving up and agreeing with the Right.

It has the effect of making one wonder cynically if this isn't a shell game.

Posted: **Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:05 am**

In order to avoid this stupefaction in any hypothetical children I might have, I plan on paying them allowance and conducting family budgeting in a currency of my own invention which can be valued or devalued depending on several factors E.G. doing their homework, cleaning up, and so forth. I will also teach them about fractional reserve banking (somehow).

"Well, you took out the garbage, so the interest on your savings account has increased 10 basis points, but you got a D on your last language arts quiz, so our currency has slipped 10 cents against the dollar. If you want the bulls to let loose, you need to do better."

It's nearly become a trope that the Right is excellent at messaging but nearly wholeheartedly rooting for only the rich, whereas the Left is terrible at messaging, supposedly roots for the little guy but usually ends up giving up and agreeing with the Right.

It has the effect of making one wonder cynically if this isn't a shell game.

Sometimes I wonder if this is the case as well, although I think part of it is simply the left as it exists after the breakup of the New Deal coalition. For better or worse, the Democratic party seems to be based primarily on an alliance of identity groups and social causes with very little common ground on the subject of economics.

Posted: **Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:18 am**

Derek Thunder wrote:Sometimes I wonder if this is the case as well, although I think part of it is simply the left as it exists after the breakup of the New Deal coalition. For better or worse, the Democratic party seems to be based primarily on an alliance of identity groups and social causes with very little common ground on the subject of economics.

This makes sense, and fits the facts as I understand them - however, it does raise a question.

Reagan's famous Republican Big Tent philosophy encompassed many groups that identify with being on the Right, similarly to how Democrats have done in earlier years - and yet, not anywhere near as much as the faction-izing is seen with Republicans as it is with Democrats.

The question is this - is this primarily a product of who's providing most of the messaging (e.g. outlets such as FOX news being able to effectively control the messaging to make the various Republican groups feel closer together), or is this due to another reason?

Posted: **Fri Jan 14, 2011 6:48 pm**

The Republicans managed to rally the various ideological factions in the Big Tent under a single economic banner following Regan's victory back in 1980, at least enough for the alliance to stick. The Democrats didn't succeed in doing so when they tried their 50 state strategy in 2008. While it's also true that Republicans are better at internal discipline and whipping people voting for them into line, that alone wouldn't have worked without the unified economic ideals.

Part of the reason is probably that the social idealists on the far right care more about things like (not having) abortion, homosexual rights, affirmative action and so on rather than things which have anything to do with the concerns of the Republican business faction per se. So as an alliance of convenience, there's little reason for it to fall apart.

Meanwhile, the Democrats had everything from Blue Dog conservatives to centrists/moderates to progressives, and they couldn't form a coherent economic vision that could also satisfy the diverse social ideals they held.

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