Republican Shutdown and Default Apocalypse Open Thread, Day 11
Here is the current situation from what I can tell:
- Obamacare is alive and it is no longer a hostage.
- The Government is still shut down and the House is still trying to keep it as a hostage.
- The Debt Ceiling limit might be extended a few weeks (maybe a few months), but the GOP is still trying to keep it as a hostage.
- The GOP is really being beat up in the court of public opinion.
So I’m going to steal some of DD’s territory here and throw out some polls:
NBC/WSJ Poll (10/10/13)
- 53% to 31% of people polled blame the GOP over President Obama for this mess. That 22 point spread is the bigger than the margin of blame the GOP got during the Clinton-era shutdown.
- 24% have a favorable opinion of the GOP — a new low
- 21% have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party — also a new low
- 47% to 39% Prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress (up from the 3 point spread last time)
- 38% now see Obamacare as a good idea, 43% see it as a bad idea – up from 31% good idea, 44% bad idea last month.
- 50% oppose eliminating funding for the law, which is up from 46% percent who said they opposed that in a Sept. 2013 CNBC poll.
- 52% to-44% believe the government should do more to solve problems. Back in June, the public was split, 48 percent to 48 percent, on whether the government should do more or less.
Those last three are simply brutal for the GOP — representing a “boomerang” effect for their hostage-taking. They’ve actually made Obamacare more popular and improved the view of government as a whole. President Obama’s polling here is relatively stable — a 47% job approval, up 2 points (within the margin of error) from the last time. 70% of those polled think that the GOP is putting politics first.
WaPo/ABC Poll (10/7/13)
- 70% disapprove of the GOP here, with strong disapproval at 51%
- 45% approve of Obama
They’re getting beat up in Gallup too:
So the bottom line is that — one year ahead of the midterms — the GOP is definitely getting killed here, even though they expected that they would not be allowed to hang out on that branch they climbed out onto this long.
Can’t wait for the clean CR, so I can get into some serious pointing and laughing.
This is very good:
This also suggests to me that the GOP also knows that their “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” prescription for poorer people is pretty much vaporware — at least in the way we know traditional middle-class mobility. Because if there was genuine opportunity — rather than low wage jobs with no benefits — they’d be proactively working on promoting that. But they aren’t interested in incentivizing the kinds of employment where families can be well cared for.
Go read the whole thing.
Oh and hey! The AFL-CIO has a copy of the Social Security ransom note.
And their idea of solving the Social Security problem includes means-testing, raising the retirement age, Chained CPI, going back to the Reagan-era FICA cap.
Honest question, what is wrong with means testing? As long as the cutoff isn’t too low. The tax is regressive anyway.
It opens the door to looting payments down the line. A better solution is moving the maximum taxable earnings up.
Or better yet, changing the definition of Social Security Wages so that those who do not receive a wage, salary, or ordinary income have to play on the same level field.
Agreed.
Yes — not much problem with means testing except what that might open the door to. With these people, who the heck knows.
Apparently means testing is going to be in the deal. Salon’s Brian Beutler is pretty happy about the overall contours of the deal that is shaping up though, “There will be elections in the future. The nature of the deal needs to establish that if Republicans lose them, they can’t cause an artificial crisis and seize control of the domestic agenda.”
Wow — I missed this one earlier this week:
John Kasich – (GOP Gov of Ohio) May Expand Medicare Via Executive Order