81% of Americans Dissatisfied with Our Country's Direction -- the Highest
Level Ever
By Scarecrow , Firedoglake
Posted on April 4, 2008, Printed on April 7, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.firedoglake.com//81329/
How do you know when government has abysmally failed and driven the
country into a ditch? Just
ask the American people.
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at
any time since the
New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early
1990s, according to
the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed that
"things have pretty
seriously gotten off on the wrong track," up from 69 percent a year ago
and 35 percent in early
2003. . . .
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group --
Democrats and Republicans,
men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and
those who finished
only high school -- say that the United States is headed in the wrong
direction. Seventy-eight
percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago;
just 4 percent said
it was better off. . . .
Only 21 percent of respondents said that the overall economy was in
good condition, the
lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession that began in the
summer of 1990 had
already been over for more than a year. In the latest poll, nearly two in
three people said
they believed the economy was in recession today.
To understand these results simply compare what Americans told pollsters
with what Wa****ngton
has done recently.
On Monday, Secretary Paulson proposed financial "reforms" prepared before
the current crisis;
predictably they do nothing to resolve it and little to prevent the next
one. Paul Krugman
called it "The Dilbert Strategy."
Yesterday, the architects of the Bear Stearns bailout told Congress that
risking $29 billion of
the Federal Reserves' own reserves to rescue a single firm (and ****eld its
purchaser), while
making $200-400 billions more available to similar financial firms was
"prudent."
"In short, we judged that a sudden, disorderly failure of Bear would
have brought with it
unpredictable but severe consequences for the functioning of the broader
financial system and
the broader economy," said Timothy F. Geithner, president of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New
York, "with lower equity prices, further downward pressure on home values,
and less access to
credit for companies and households."
Not surprisingly, the Times/CBS poll shows Americans don't agree with
their government's
priorities:
In *****sing possible responses to the mortgage crisis, Americans
displayed a populist
streak, favoring help for individuals but not financial institutions. A
clear majority said
they did not want the government to lend a hand to banks, even if the
measures would help limit
the depth of a recession. . . .
Respondents were considerably more open to government help for home
owners at risk of
foreclosure. Fifty-three percent said they believed the government should
help those whose
interest rates were rising, while 41 percent said they opposed such a
move.
And Congress' response? Senate Democrats agreed to give Republicans credit
for helping
struggling homeowners by accepting a "bipartisan" package of measures
strongly tilted towards .
.. . bailing out lenders and builders! As for homeowners, a key measure
Democrats had been
pu****ng to allow bankruptcy courts to restructure mortgages was stripped
from the package at
Republican insistence and then quickly killed on a 58-36 motion to table,
screwing consumers
but pleasing the lenders.
Meanwhile, Americans are ready to jettison the Bush/McCain tax cuts for
the rich and use that
money to help the country:
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would sup****t raising
taxes on households
making more than $250,000 to pay for tax cuts or government programs for
people making less
than that amount. Only 38 percent called it a bad idea. Both Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton and
Senator Barack Obama, the remaining Democratic presidential candidates,
have made proposals
along these lines.
Just like George Bush, John McCain has been on the wrong side of every
issue im****tant to
voters: he approved the Fed's Bear Stearns bailout, but opposes more
regulation and is
skeptical about helping homeowners; he sup****ts Bush's tax cuts for the
rich; he'll stay in
Iraq for 100 years, even though Americans and Iraqis want us out.
The primary reason McCain isn't sharing Bush's dismal approval numbers and
trailing
Clinton/Obama badly is because the media are ****elding him from political
gravity. They need to
let go and let the entire party crash. They've earned it.
Scarecrow is a regular blogger for FireDogLake
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