Terry Everett Brown's Weblog

One of Life's Most Puzzling Non-Sequitors...

I've never understood why people allow themselves to be politically influenced by actors?

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/12/07/next-week-on-the-history-channel-hollywood-stars-introduce-your-kids-to-marxism/

Pelosi and The Pope

The Pope and Nancy Pelosi are on the same stage in front of a huge crowd. The Madame Speaker and the Pope, however, have seen it all before. 
 
To make it a little more interesting, Madame Speaker says to the Pope, "Did you know that with just one little wave of my hand I can make every Democrat in the crowd go wild?" 
 
He doubts it, so she shows him.  Sure enough, the wave elicits rapture and cheering from every democrat in the crowd.  Gradually, the cheering subsides. 
 
The Pope, not wanting to be outdone by such a level of arrogance, considers what he could do... 
"That was impressive, the Pope says, "But did you know that with just one little wave of MY hand I can make many people in the crowd, and many around the world, go crazy with joy?  This joy will not be a momentary display like that of your subjects, but will go deep into their hearts, and they will forever speak of this day and rejoice." 
 
The speaker seriously doubts this, and says so.  "One little wave of your hand and so many people will rejoice forever?  Show me." 
 

So the Pope slapped her. 
 

From one of the World's Best Thinkers...

Robert Samuelson is the author of many brilliant books, essays and columns on economics - one of which, The Clash of Civilizations, is one of the most thought provoking pieces I've ever read.  In an effort to consume and share material that is not blindly partisan or consistently from a conservative point of view, I thought this would present the current discussion and debate on Health Care through a wise yet non-partisan perspective:

Robert Jacob Samuelson (born December 23, 1945) is a contributing editor of Newsweek and The Washington Post where he has written about business and economic issues since 1977. His columns appear in both publications.^[1] His articles also appear in the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and other influential newspapers. Because he writes on economic issues, he is sometimes confused with Nobel laureate in Economics Paul Samuelson, to whom he is not related.

He began his career in journalism as a reporter on the business desk of The Washington Post in 1969. He left the paper to become a freelancer in 1973. His work has appeared in The Sunday Times, The New Republic and the Columbia Journalism Review. He joined the National Journal in 1976, where he wrote the "Economic Focus" column. He was a contributing editor there from 1981 to 1984, until he left to write for Newsweek.^[1]

Samuelson was born in New York City and raised in nearby White Plains, New York.^[2] He received his bachelor's degree in 1967 from Harvard University, where he majored in government.^[3] He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife. They have one daughter and two sons.^[1] One of his recurring topics is Social Security and the unwillingness of the politicians to deal with problems he and others believe it will have in the future. He has written three books.

Samuelson also does not vote in any elections (be they national, state or local) as he believes that voting interferes with his impartiality as a journalist.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502212.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502212.html

Obamacare: Buy now, pay later

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By Robert J. Samuelson

Monday, November 16, 2009

There is an air of absurdity to what is mistakenly called "health-care reform." Everyone knows that the United States faces massive governmental budget deficits as far as calculators can project, driven heavily by an aging population and uncontrolled health costs. As we recover slowly from a devastating recession, it's widely agreed that, though deficits should not be cut abruptly (lest the economy resume its slump), a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending and curb massive future deficits. The administration estimates these at $9 trillion from 2010 to 2019. The president and all his top economic advisers proclaim the same cautionary message.

THIS STORY

• Obamacare: Buy now, pay later

• ROTC for civilian service

• Gambling with the dollar

So what do they do? Just the opposite. Their far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system -- which Congress is halfway toward enacting -- would almost certainly make matters worse. It would create new, open-ended medical entitlements that threaten higher deficits and would do little to suppress surging health costs. The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.

The campaign to pass Obama's health-care plan has assumed a false, though understandable, cloak of moral superiority. It's understandable because almost everyone thinks that people in need of essential medical care should get it; ideally, everyone would have health insurance. The pursuit of these worthy goals can easily be projected as a high-minded exercise for the public good.

It's false for two reasons. First, the country has other goals -- including preventing financial crises and minimizing the crushing effects of high deficits or taxes on the economy and younger Americans -- that "health-care reform" would jeopardize. And second, the benefits of "reform" are exaggerated. Sure, many Americans would feel less fearful about losing insurance; but there are cheaper ways to limit insecurity. Meanwhile, improvements in health for today's uninsured would be modest. They already receive substantial medical care. Insurance would help some individuals enormously, but studies find that, on average, gains are moderate. Despite using more health services, people don't automatically become healthier.

The pretense of moral superiority further erodes before all the expedient deceptions used to sell Obama's health-care agenda. The president says that he won't sign legislation that adds to the deficit. One way to accomplish this is to put costs outside the legislation. So: Doctors have long complained that their Medicare reimbursements are too low; the fix for replacing the present formula would cost $210 billion over a decade, estimates the Congressional Budget Office. That cost was originally in the "health reform" legislation. Now, it's been moved to another bill but, because there's no means to pay for it (higher taxes or spending cuts), deficits would increase.

Another way to disguise the costs is to count savings that, though they exist on paper, will probably never be realized in practice. So: The House bill is credited with reductions in Medicare reimbursements for hospitals and other providers of $228 billion over a decade. But Congress has often prescribed reimbursement cuts that, under pressure from squeezed providers, it has later rescinded. Claims of "fiscal responsibility" for the health-care proposals reflect "assumptions that are totally unrealistic based on past history," says David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general and now head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Equally misleading, Obama's top economic advisers assert that the present proposals would slow the growth of overall national health spending. Outside studies disagree. Three studies (two by the consulting firm the Lewin Group for the Peterson Foundation and one by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency) conclude that various congressional plans would increase national health spending compared with the effect of no legislation. The studies variously estimate that the extra spending, over the next decade, would be $750 billion, $525 billion and $114 billion. The reasoning: Greater use of the health-care system by the newly insured would overwhelm cost-saving measures (bundled payments, comparative effectiveness research, tort reform), which are either weak or experimental.

Though these estimates could prove wrong, they are more plausible than the administration's self-serving claims. Its health-care plan is not "comprehensive," as Obama and the New York Times (in its news columns) assert, because it slights cost control. Obama chose to emphasize the politically appealing path of expanding benefits rather than first attending to the harder and more urgent task of controlling spending. If new spending commitments worsen some future budget or financial crisis, Obama's proposal certainly won't qualify as "reform," as the president and The Post (also in its news columns) call it. It's more like malpractice: a self-inflicted wound.

Public Opinion Turns Against Obamacare

Americans have moved in a more negative direction on the basic issue of whether a new bill should be passed into law. Thirty-eight percent now say they would advise their member of Congress to vote against a new healthcare bill this year, while 29% would advise their member to vote for it, and about a third have no opinion. When those with no opinion are asked which way they lean, the verdict becomes 48% "against," and 43% "for." Both of these results are more negative than those from early October.

 

Real Solutions to Real Problems

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2669.cfm

Sometimes its nice to be reminded that some people are out there working very hard to develop real solutions to some of our country's big problems...Rep. Paul Ryan is one of those people:

October 30, 2009

The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act Would Help Congress Rein in Spending and Deficits

by Brian M. Riedl

WebMemo #2669

As federal spending and budget deficits soar to percentages of the economy unseen since World War II, lawmakers must make spending restraint a top priority. This requires the political will to make difficult choices, as well as a budget framework that promotes responsible budgeting. Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) have authored the Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act to provide such a framework. This bill would: Create a process for bringing long-term sustainability to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; Cap federal spending and require that Congress reduce the budget deficit; Give the budget resolution the force of law; Create commissions to reduce wasteful spending; and End government shutdowns. Failure of the Current Budget Process In using the current federal budget process, Congress is failing to meet its most basic obligations. While the responsibility rests with Congress, the process stifles debate and prevents cooperation instead of providing an orderly roadmap for Congress to determine responsible levels of annual spending and revenue. Created back in 1974, the current process has been subject to 35 years of abuse and loopholes from lawmakers hoping to exploit its structural flaws.[1] The Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rules currently serving as Congress's favored mechanism for fiscal responsibility has failed. Although it is supposed to require that all spending increases and tax cuts be offset, it exempts all discretionary spending programs, as well as the automatic annual growth of current entitlement programs. For the limited portion of the federal budget constrained by PAYGO, Congress has voted to waive the law repeatedly, pushing up entitlement spending and budget deficits to historic levels.[2] A Budget Process to Match America's Budget Priorities A new, more disciplined budget process approach is needed. The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act would provide annual caps on spending, help lawmakers control entitlement spending, and enforce budget restraint. Its five most important components include the following[3]: 1. Addressing Long-Term Obligations. Social Security and Medicare face a combined unfunded obligation of $43 trillion over the next 75 years.[4] In the absence of reform, these costs would require more than doubling income tax rates.[5] Yet these programs are on autopilot, giving Congress and the President no obligation to confront these costs. When lawmakers do address entitlements, only the 10-year budget impact is calculated, even though reforms can have significant effects on spending outside the 10-year window. The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act would require an annual reporting of these long-term unfunded obligations and a new point of order against expanding those obligations. It would mandate 75-year budget projections and require that Congress put Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on a sustainable path. If these programs fall off the path, a fast-track legislative procedure is provided to bring them back onto that path. This would force Congress to confront the long-term unsustainability of these entitlements and prevent trillion-dollar debt from being dumped into the laps of future generations. 2. Spending Caps. Budgets are about setting priorities and making trade-offs. Yet political incentives favor funding more and more spending to win tough votes. The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act would bring back the discretionary spending caps that successfully restrained discretionary spending while in effect from 1990 through 2002. This spending could only grow with the inflation rate for the next decade--which is nearly identical to the 2011-2019 discretionary spending growth rates in President Obama's budget. The bill's use of supermajority enforcement and discouragement of the "emergency" loophole improve on previous spending caps. It would also require that new entitlement spending expansions be offset with entitlement reductions elsewhere--a much-needed tool given the large recent entitlement expansions for farm subsidies, veterans' health care, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and the stimulus. Spending limits would enable lawmakers to finally say no to special interests pressing them for more spending. Finally, the act would cap federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and provide annual benchmarks to reduce the budget deficit. Since World War II, federal spending has averaged 20 percent of GDP, with budget deficits around 2 percent of GDP. But President Obama's budget agenda threatens to push federal spending above 28 percent of GDP by 2019.[6] With deficits already nearly 10 percent of GDP, it is vital to provide a path to fiscal responsibility. 3. Giving the Budget Resolution the Force of Law. Because concurrent budget resolutions do not carry the force of law, appropriators can easily bypass them. Concurrent budget resolutions also do not involve the President, which means Congress and the White House are not required to begin any broad budget negotiations until the end of the year, when the appropriations bills reach the President's desk. The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act would move from a concurrent budget resolution (that does not involve the President) to a joint budget resolution (which would be signed into law by the President). By working out the differences early in the process and enacting a binding law, the President and Congress would be forced to resolve the broad issues regarding the appropriate level of total spending and revenue. This, in turn, would limit the appropriations debate to the composition of federal spending, and any disagreements in this area would be far easier to work out with the spending totals already in place. It would also make it more difficult for lawmakers to spend above the levels in the budget resolution. Some critics contend that giving the President a role in the budget resolution unfairly transfers power from Congress to the President. However, Congress's budget cannot be enacted until the President approves it. This reform would simply move up the inevitable negotiations and provide an opportunity to settle contentious issues earlier rather than later. 4. Removing Wasteful Spending. The act would create a commission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and a commission to recommend sunsetting outdated and unnecessary federal programs. These commissions could address wasteful spending such as: $92 billion annually on corporate welfare (not even counting TARP) versus $71 billion on homeland security; $72 billion in improper payments in 2008; $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties; $123 billion annually on the 22 percent of all federal programs from which government auditors cannot identify any positive impact; $100 billion in potential spending cuts identified by the Congressional Budget Office's "Budget Options" series; and Duplication such as 342 economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, and 90 early childhood development programs.[7] For these commissions to be effective, their recommendations must be automatically converted into legislation that would be guaranteed an up-or-down congressional vote without a chance for lawmakers to amend out the savings. Otherwise, the commissions would risk producing just another government waste report that goes ignored by Congress. 5. Government Shutdown Prevention. Members of Congress have proven increasingly incapable of finishing appropriations bills by the start of the new fiscal year (October 1). Not since FY 1997 have the bills been enacted on time, and this year only one of the 12 spending bills was completed by October 1. The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act would create an automatic continuing resolution that funds federal programs at the previous year's level until appropriations are enacted. This would reduce uncertainty and the risk of a government shutdown when lawmakers fall behind on spending bills. The bill also includes: An earmark moratorium; Legislative line-item veto; Repeal of the "Gephardt Rule"; and Limits on reconciliation bills creating new entitlement programs. Improving the Act The act has some minor weaknesses. Enforcing spending caps by requiring automatic spending cuts ("sequestrations") from overspending is sound, although capping sequestrations at 1 percent of spending effectively protects larger spending overages from this important enforcement mechanism. Baseline reforms should focus on fixing the inequity between the tax baseline (current policy) and entitlement spending baseline (current law), which unfairly assumes that expiring tax cuts will expire but expiring entitlement program authorizations will be renewed. These weaknesses should be relatively easy to address. A Broken System The current budget process was created in 1974 and has been subject to 35 years of abuse and loopholes. It has proven wholly unsuited to help lawmakers address the surging spending and budget deficits that place the entire United States economy at risk. The principles contained in the Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act would modernize the federal budget process and help lawmakers make the difficult but necessary choices to reverse the unsustainable budget trends. Brian M. Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. [1]Brian Riedl, "What's Wrong with the Federal Budget Process," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1816, January 25, 2005, athttp://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg1816.cfm. [2]Brian Riedl, "Obama's PAYGO Law Would Not Slow Spending or Budget Deficits," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2312, February 26, 2009, athttp://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2312.cfm. [3]Based on a summary of the legislation. Statutory language not yet available. [4]Over an infinite time horizon, the net present of the unfunded obligation is $104 trillion. See Social Security Administration, "The 2009 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance," May 12, 2009, p. 13, at http://www.ssa.gov /OACT/TR/2009/tr09.pdf (October 29, 2009); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, "2009 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Funds," May 12, 2009, athttp://www.cms.hhs.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2009.pdf (October 29, 2009). [5]Congressional Budget Office, "The Long-Term Economic Effects of Some Alternative Budget Policies," May 19, 2008, at http://www.cbo.gov/ ftpdocs/92xx/doc9216/05-19-LongtermBudget_Letter-to-Ryan.pdf (October 29, 2009). [6]Brian Riedl, "President Obama's Agenda Would Bring $13 Trillion in Budget Deficits, Not $9 Trillion," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2319, September 22, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget /bg2319.cfm. [7]Brian Riedl, "50 Examples of Government Waste," Heritage FoundationWebMemo No. 2642, October 6, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/ Research/Budget/wm2642.cfm.

Non-Partisan Reality Check!

Partisanship and politics aside, I honestly can not for the life of me, understand how any human being could possibly accept what Nancy Pelosi is doing as anything other than completely crazy behavior:

The US House of Reps. is seriously claiming that a bill that is estimated by the CBO to cost $1.2 trillion is "not going to add a dime to the deficit."

Riiiiiiiiiight. I could claim that I'm an astronaut, but that wouldn't make it true.  Let me show you:

I am an astronaut.  I have been to the moon twice.

See. I just wrote that.  And its still not true.

Just to be very clear here-  the first absurd thing Pelosi did was to "cut the cost" of the bill from $1.2 trillion to $900 billion by removing the "Doctor Fix" (which reimburses doctors for underpayments they are left with from medicare) from the Health Care bill.  The $250 billion expense will now add directly to the deficit, but since it will be passed as a separate bill, the Health care bill will technically not be charged with incurring this amount of increased deficit spending.

This is so wildly asinine, it is as if, as Stephen Hayes said, "I went out and bought a $2000 mountain bike and didn't tell my wife."  Yes, the wife could technically claim not to own the bike, but that wouldn't mean her joint account wouldn't be debited the $2000.

This is really, really crazy behavior.  Why are we letting these politicians get away with this kind of insanity?  This is our money they are playing games with, not theirs.

But wait, it gets even more ridiculous.  Then Pelosi did an even more embarrassing thing.  She then claimed that $500 billion is going to be cut from Medicare and these savings will be used to pay for the Health care Reform bill. This $500 billion, its important to note, will not cause any cuts in services medicare provides, because it will come entirely from waste and corruption.  You don't have to know a lot about politics to know that if were that easy to shave $500 billion dollars worth of savings off of a corrupt and enormously mismanaged government bureaucracy, then most politicians would already have accessed those so-called 'savings' to pay for any number of other projects they are working so hard to create and provide for their constituents.

So, to summarize, Nancy Pelosi is claiming, with a straight face, that $750 billion dollars worth of spending on her reform bill is not spending at all, because one third of it is simply being shifted to another bill (the doctor fix) and two thirds of it will be covered by as yet unseen 'savings' from Medicare.

Now, politics and partisanship aside, it doesn't matter who proposes something as cynical and corrupt as this scheme, nor does it matter what the proposal is for.  You could line up every congressmen, republicans, independents and democrats in the entire House of Representatives and have them propose this type of scheme in order to pay for a bill to cure all disease and feed every child in America, or any other scenario imaginable that would be certain to garner 100% support from everybody, but it still wouldn't make sense.

I understand that in the case of Pelosi's Health care reform bill, she must believe it is so important that it doesn't matter that she's making up non-sensical ways of explaining how it will be funded. The ends justify the means.  But don't the rest of us have some responsibility to say no this type of reckless behavior?

Put the isuse and the parties and the politicians and the policies aside, and think for just a second- shouldn't we expect at least some semblance of reason and logic as to how these programs will be paid for to accompany their creation?  If not, then why stop at insuring 38 million americans, and why not insure all 6 billion human beings on the planet?   If we're being asked to completely ignore reality, then shouldn't we expect the world? 

Its Easier to Critique than it is to Create

Obama's disapproval rating peaked at 44.4% today in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling data:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

It seems he's discovering what I learned when I wrote my first play:  its much easier to criticque than it is to create.

October 26, 2009

Obama at Odds With His Own Vision for the World

By Michael Barone

Barack Obama, who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago, apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, we all have our priorities, and the president can't be everywhere at once, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent the United States ably in Berlin.

Still, it seemed an odd decision to me -- until I went back and got the speech that candidate Obama delivered on July 24, 2008, to a crowd of 200,000 in the Tiergarten in Berlin. As I reread the text, it struck me that there would be an embarrassing contrast between what Obama said in Berlin 15 months ago and many of the policies he has been pursuing in his nine months as president.

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Some conservatives were irritated that Obama introduced himself at the Tiergarten as "a fellow citizen of the world." But before that, he declared himself "a proud citizen of the United States," and of his 46 paragraphs only one was devoted to an apology for America's misdeeds ("our share of mistakes," "times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions"). Quite a contrast here with the more profuse apologies he has made abroad this year.

In addition, Obama in seven stirring paragraphs recounted America's airlift of food and fuel to Berlin when the Soviets cut off land access in 1948. True, at one point he suggested that the Berlin Wall came down because "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." But if that sounds like fuzzy, every-nation-has-the-same-dreams rhetoric, he also spoke of "the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate," evidence of Soviet oppression.

These portions of the Tiergarten speech looking to the past could appropriately be repeated, with different phrasing, in a speech commemorating the fall of the Wall. But the portions of the Tiergarten speech looking to the future would pose some problems.

In the Tiergarten, Obama spoke of "the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan" and of the need "to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida" there. That doesn't mesh very well with his recent reconsideration of the Afghanistan strategy he announced in March and reiterated in August, nor with the White House spin doctors' suggestions that the Taliban and al-Qaida are not necessarily allies any more.

In the Tiergarten, Obama asserted his "resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must and to seek a partnership that extends across this whole continent." That doesn't mesh very well with the "reset button" policy toward Russia that looks past its attacks on Georgia and Ukraine and propitiates the Putin regime with unilateral withdrawal of missile defense installations from Poland and the Czech Republic.

In the Tiergarten, Obama said the United States must "stand with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions." But that message, if sent, has evidently not had the intended effect on the mullah regime, which is drawing out negotiations while presumably continuing its nuclear program apace.

"Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran or the voter in Zimbabwe?" Obama asked in the Tiergarten. "Will we give meaning to the words 'never again' in Darfur?"

Well, the Obama administration has toughened up a bit on its negotiator's recommendation we give "cookies and gold stars" to the Sudanese regime that has terrorized Darfur, and our diplomats have tried to help out in Zimbabwe. But we haven't done much of anything for the dissident in Burma, and Obama, while truckling to the mullahs, showed stony indifference to the thousands protesting the stealing of the June 12 elections in Iran.

Last year, Obama told Berliners that we and they are "heirs to a struggle for freedom." This year, his administration has been busy trying to appease dictatorial and authoritarian regimes. So maybe he was wise to skip a return appearance in Berlin. Let Hillary Clinton gloss over the embarrassing contrast between his rhetoric then and his policies now.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

When is the Right Time...

to stop pointing fingers...and accept responibility for your own policies?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/10/28/krauthammer_obamas_attacks_on_bush_are_disgusting.html

America is Becoming More Conservative

I am fascinated by the results of this recent collection of 16 Gallup Polls, both because it is counterintuitive and because it is mainly driven by Independents leaning to the right.  I wonder how much credit can reasonbly be attributed to Obama's lurching leftward and/or embracing a hardball partisan style which is so contrary to his populist appeal during the campaign?

**IF SOME DATA IS CROPPED, YOU CAN GO DIRECTLY TO GALLUP WITH THE FOLLOWING LINK:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/Conservatives-Maintain-Edge-Top-Ideological-Group.aspx

October 26, 2009

Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group

Compared with 2008, more Americans “conservative” in general, and on issues

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

"Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008."

The 2009 data are based on 16 separate Gallup surveys conducted from January through September, encompassing more than 5,000 national adults per quarter. Conservatives have been the dominant ideological group each quarter, with between 39% and 41% of Americans identifying themselves as either "very conservative" or "conservative." Between 35% and 37% of Americans call themselves "moderate," while the percentage calling themselves "very liberal" or "liberal" has consistently registered between 20% and 21% -- making liberals the smallest of the three groups.

Independents Inch to the Right

Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008. By contrast, among Republicans and Democrats, the percentage who are "conservative" has increased by one point each.

As is typical in recent years, Republicans are far more unified in their political outlook than are either independents or Democrats. While 72% of Republicans in 2009 call their views conservative, independents are closely split between the moderate and conservative labels (43% and 35%, respectively). Democrats are about evenly divided between moderates (39%) and liberals (37%).

Americans Also Moving Right on Some Issues

In addition to the increase in conservatism on this general ideology measure, Gallup finds higher percentages of Americans expressing conservative views on several specific issues in 2009 than in 2008.

• Perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business and industry jumped from 38% in September 2008 to 45% in September 2009.

• The percentage of Americans saying they would like to see labor unions have less influence in the country rose from 32% in August 2008 to a record-high 42% in August 2009.

• Public support for keeping the laws governing the sale of firearms the same or making them less strict rose from 49% in October 2008 to 55% in October 2009, also a record high. (The percentage saying the laws should become more strict -- the traditionally liberal position -- fell from 49% to 44%.)

• The percentage of Americans favoring a decrease in immigration rose from 39% in June/July 2008 to 50% in July 2009.

• The propensity to want the government to "promote traditional values" -- as opposed to "not favor any particular set of values" -- rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.

• The percentage of Americans who consider themselves "pro-life" on abortion rose from 44% in May 2008 to 51% in May 2009, and remained at a slightly elevated 47% in July 2009.

• Americans' belief that the global warming problem is "exaggerated" in the news rose from 35% in March 2008 to 41% in March 2009.

Gallup has not recorded heightened conservatism on all major social and political views held by Americans. For instance, attitudes on the death penalty, gay marriage, the Iraq war, and Afghanistan have stayed about the same since 2008. However, there are no major examples of U.S. public opinion becoming more liberal in the past year. (Gallup's annual trends on healthcare will be updated in November, so those attitudes are not included in this review.)

The conservative shifts discussed here result as much from changes in political independents' views as from changes in Republicans' views. Democrats' views, by contrast, have generally changed only slightly -- either to the conservative or liberal side -- with two exceptions: Gallup finds greater movement in Democrats' views of abortion, which have become more liberal, and their views of labor unions, which have become more conservative.

Bottom Line

Americans are more likely to consider themselves conservative this year than they were in 2008, resulting in conservatives -- now 40% of the American public -- outnumbering moderates for the first time since 2004. While Gallup first documented this trend in June, the finding has been sustained through the third quarter.

Conservatism is most prevalent among Republicans. However, the overall increase in this ideological stance since 2008 comes largely from political independents, among whom 35% say they are conservatives thus far in 2009 -- compared with 29% last year. Independents have also become more conservative on a number of specific policy issues, including government and union power, the role of government relative to promoting values, gun laws, immigration, global warming, and abortion. Republicans, most of whom considered themselves ideologically conservative in 2008, have also grown more conservative on several of these issues this year, while less change is seen among Democrats.

All of this has potentially important implications at the ballot box, particularly for the 2010 midterm elections. The question is whether increased conservatism, particularly among independents, will translate into heightened support for Republican candidates. Right now, it appears it may. Although Gallup polling continues to show the Democratic Party leading the Republican Party in Americans' party identification, that lead has been narrowing since the beginning of the year and now stands at six points, the smallest since 2005. According to Gallup Managing Editor Jeff Jones, "the Democratic-Republican gap is narrowing because more independents now say they lean to the Republican Party." That trend aligns with the recent changes in how independents perceive their own ideology and where they stand on some key issues.

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Survey Methods

The 2009 political ideology results reported here are based on 16 aggregated Gallup surveys conducted from January to September 2009. For results based on the total sample of 16,321 national adults, aged 18 and older, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

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Ineffective to a Strength?

Below is a link to a recent SNL skit suggesting that those of us who are concerned about the detrimental and dangerous effects of Obamunism shouldn't be so worried, because he has actually accomplished nothing to date:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYnMYZDsrJM

And I have to wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing?

Of course, preventing Iran from obtaining and using nuclear weapons and preventing Afghanistan from harboring Al Qaeda base camps would certainly be good for all Americans.  But if Obama is too ineffective to stop the Iranian nuclear threat and the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, then we are all in danger.  As many Obama supporters begin to wonder whether they might have made a mistake by choosing the peddler of hope over the peddler of pain that is Hillary, there is new evidence today that Clinton may not have been any safer, or more responsible of a choice:

October 16, 2009

Debacle in Moscow

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award "premature," as if the brilliance of Obama's foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

To believe this, you have to be a dreamy adolescent (preferably Scandinavian and a member of the Socialist International) or an indiscriminate imbiber of White House talking points. After all, this was precisely the spin on the president's various apology tours through Europe and the Middle East: National self-denigration -- excuse me, outreach and understanding -- is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign policy successes shall come.

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Chauncey Gardiner could not have said it better. Well, at nine months, let's review.

What's come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.

What's come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama's shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told). China hasn't moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed it's pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

What's come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? "The settlement push backfired," reports The Washington Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have "arguably regressed."

And what's come from Obama's single most dramatic foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.

But maybe not gratuitous. Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it's too late? Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal.

The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get?

"Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions: Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart." Such was The Washington Post headline's succinct summary of the debacle.

Note how thoroughly Clinton was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that "threats, sanctions and threats of pressure" are "counterproductive." Note: It's not just sanctions that are worse than useless, but even the threat of mere pressure.

It gets worse. Having failed to get any movement from the Russians, Clinton herself moved -- to accommodate the Russian position! Sanctions? What sanctions? "We are not at that point yet," she averred. "That is not a conclusion we have reached ... it is our preference that Iran work with the international community."

But wait a minute. Didn't Obama say in July that Iran had to show compliance by the G-20 summit in late September? And when that deadline passed, did he not then warn Iran that it would face "sanctions that have bite" and that it would have to take "a new course or face consequences"?

Gone with the wind. It's the U.S. that's now retreating from its already flimsy position of just three weeks ago. We're not doing sanctions now, you see. We're back to engagement. Just as the Russians suggest.

Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.

No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and "reset" buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group