DC Politicians Beware: Voters Want the Employment Crisis Fixed -- If You Mess with Social Security o

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/story/147835/dc_politicians_beware%3A_voters_want_the_employment_crisis_fixed_--_if_you_mess_with_social_security_or_deficits%2C_you%27re_toast_

DC Politicians Beware: Voters Want the Employment Crisis Fixed -- If You Mess with Social Security or Deficits, You're Toast

A new survey finds a huge majority of Americans are in agreement about our biggest problem. Obama and the Dems better listen up.


Even while the politicians and pundits keep telling us that the federal deficit is a huge and pressing problem, a new public opinion survey finds that a majority of American voters have their own view of what deficits mean to our economy, and how best to deal with our economic woes. They favor progressive strategies for bringing the deficit beast to heel, and a healthy majority rejects the Right’s preferred course of balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly and infirm.

But the survey, conducted by the Dem-leaning polling firm Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner (GQR), also found that the Right's campaign to stoke anxiety about the deficit has had an effect. The researchers concluded that voters in their sample are concerned first and foremost with jobs, then with jobs, and they’re also worried about jobs -- but many Americans are anxious about the deficit, in the near-term, because they believe it "slows job growth.”

That means that progressives have to strike a delicate balance -- when they dismiss concerns about high deficits out of hand, conservative messaging wins. When asked the question cold -- without context -- more people in the survey agreed that “The danger of putting the burden of debt on future generations by not focusing enough on deficit reduction” outweighed “The danger of throwing more people out of work and extending the recession by focusing too much on deficit reduction.”

More at the link ----