The Morning Plum: The increasingly isolated GOP

Posted by Greg Sargent

The Republican Party continues to stage a big, dramatic showdown ostensibly designed to save the republic from Obama’s reckless overspending. It turns out, though, that it’s a showdown that nobody — except for a small minority of Americans — really wants.

Today’s Washington Post poll finds that a whopping 67 percent of Americans say Congressional Republicans are doing “too little” to cooperate with President Obama, while only 27 percent say the GOP is doing the right amount or too much. Among independents, those numbers are 68-26. By contrast, 48 percent say Obama’s doing too little to cooperate with Republicans, while the same amount — 48 percent — say he’s doing the right amount or too much.

More to the point: 58 percent of Americans — and 58 percent of independents — say the debate about raising the debt ceiling should be separate from efforts to cut spending. Even 45 percent of Republicans say this. Only 36 percent of Americans want the debt ceiling to be tied to spending cuts.

In other words, this poll suggests the public overwhelmingly rejects the GOP leadership’s case that raising the debt ceiling must be tied to spending cuts of comparable size. But it gets worse. The Post poll also asked whether people favor default or a partial government shutdown if no compromise is reached. Only 22 percent of Americans support that course of action. Only 36 percent of Republicans support it.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/16/the-morning-plum-the-increasingly-isolated-gop/