Do Republicans comprehend what sequestration is?
The warped, alternate reality depicted by WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan and GOP operatives actually explains a lot
BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD
We all know sequestration is super boring and no one is paying attention to it, but our brave newspaper columnists have to press on write about it nonetheless, so maybe we should forgive Peggy Noonan for being a little confused about the package of $1.2 trillion in spending cuts that will go into effect at midnight tonight.
In her Wall Street Journal column today, which thankfully lacks any attempts to read John Boehner’s “vibrations,” Noonan ruminates at length about whom the American people will blame for the pain the sequester will inflict:
Everyone has been wondering how the public will react when the sequester kicks in. The American people are in the position of hostages who’ll have to decide who the hostage-taker is. People will get mad at either the president or the Republicans in Congress. That anger will force one side to rethink or back down. Or maybe the public will get mad at both. [...] If the sequester brings chaos and discomfort, it’s certainly possible the Republicans will be blamed. But it’s just as possible President Obama will be.
Good analysis. If only there was some way of asking the American people, but that would exceedingly difficult. Perhaps we could ask just a few of them, carefully selected to reflect to the overall population. We could call it a poll!
Fortunately, some of Noonan’s colleagues are way ahead of me here and did just this, releasing their big Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey this week that showed the public is much more likely to blame Republicans than Obama for the sequester. It’d be one thing for Noonan to argue that the polls are wrong and the winds will change after the cuts actually go into effect, which may very well be true, but it’s another just ignore the existence of public opinion research altogether because it doesn’t confirm her narrative.
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http://www.salon.com/2013/03/01/do_republicans_comprehend_what_sequestration_is/
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on this Board and other Forums who the real hostages are. People will be infuriated at the President if he dismantles or cut these so called programs Peggy Noonan and her reading audience wants him to. Her article was written for the Wall Street Journal readership. That paper is for Wall Street. I would also argue the Washington Post caters to the Washington Beltway.
The so called entitlements they want to cut are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In their view this is wasteful spending, people can do without. They loss out on Bush's attempts to put them in the Private sector so this is just a new tactic to destroy those programs. They want to keep nicking at them. This is a slippery slope. Those programs have never been popular with the Wall Street audience. It is American money they can't get at.
That is why I'm skeptical of any Polls coming from the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal whether they are positive or negative because of the potential for manipulation. Polling is not only a science, but it is also an art. You can get data in Polling to say whatever you want it to. Republican Pollsters proved that in the last cycle. You can use Polls to influence Public Opinion when you want a certain Policy, and Wall Street certainly has an agenda. Almost half of Congress are millionaires and many of them have investments or ties to Wall Street. There are people that have been elected to Congress that have gotten very wealthy since they got there. Whose interests do you really think they are looking out for? The Republican Party is the worst.
