This is good news:
Eight in 10 Americans believe that the government’s $110 billion effort to help consumers will not boost the economy, according to a poll released Friday.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted April 28-30 found that 82% of Americans believe the stimulus package will fall short – compared to 70% in February.
The program, passed with bipartisan support earlier this year, will give tax rebate checks to about 130 million Americans. Most single Americans earning $75,000 or less who filed a tax form will receive up to $600, and married couples earning $150,000 or less could get up to $1200.
Maybe after the rejection of the gas tax gimmick and the clear signal from voters that they know this “stimulus package” will do nothing but blow more money, the era of gimmick government may finally be coming to an end. I am not sure what is bringing about this change, maybe it is the fact that gas prices are hitting so hard and that people are in such dire straits that they know the usual bullshit will not work, but this is a positive thing. We can;t solve all these problems if all we do are play games with them. It looks like the American public isfinally seeing through the BS and is tired of it.
And before you ask, McCain voted for the stimulus package, Obama did not vote. Brad DeLong has the run down on what Obama did propose, however.
liberal
Even though I’m a liberal/left Democrat, what I really fear these days is a taxpayer bailout of bankrupt homeowners (either directly, or by pushing the problem onto Fannie Mae, the FHA, etc, in some manner that leads to a taxpayer bailout of those agencies).
It’s the only issue I can think of where I seem to be in agreement with (GASP!) W and the Rethuglicans in Congress.
Genine
I really think we’re in the middle real noticeable shift in consciousness. I know it sounds like silly, new-age hooey, but that’s what I think. As always, I recognize I could be wrong.
But, at any rate, it’s exciting times. Old paradigms are falling away and the new is coming in. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Zifnab
It wasn’t even the fact that a stimulus package was a bad idea. It was the fact that – in a GOP intimidated legislature – the result was a bad stimulus bill. Money that should have gone towards food stamps and unemployment benefits got diverted to tax breaks for mega-corps. Because, you know, Walmart and Exxon need more cash, but Joe Six-Pack who just got laid off from his collar job can deal fine on his own.
I honestly don’t think this is a change in attitude. If they tried this in 1980, you’d be seeing the same response. The difference between now and then is how vocal people can be – via blogs, et al – about exactly how much they think it won’t work.
Face
what’s amazing is that peeps simply cannot fathom that spending 700+ mill per day in Iraq is money that could be used to subsidize hybrids, build better roads, construct public transpo, etc.
IOW, cry and bitch and moan about gas prices….but hey, 12+ bill in Iraq every month is a-ok.
The Other Steve
So no more tax cuts and massive spending increases to make everybody happy and vote for ya?
God, that was so fucking annoying… as if everybody in this entire country is a moron.
BTW… Hillary is done. All the news today is about when she’s going to announce her withdrawl.
Helena Montana
Ramsussen says they are no longer tracking Dem race. Now they are focusing on tracking Obama vs. McCain.
The Other Steve
What money!?
THERE IS NO MONEY!
THAT IS THE PROBLEM!
John Cole
Christ, Genine. No more about consciousness or any of that new-age stuff you creative class types worship.
It scares the white working class voters.
/talkleft
John Cole
Got any details? I am in the office and then heading down to Unity Pony HQ to volunteer and won’t be near a tv until late night.
John S.
When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars…
Genine
I’m not talking about a change in attitude. I’m talking about a change in consciousness. They’re different things. The way I think of it is consciousness is a base and attitude is just an aspect of it. Like a color painted on.
The best analogy I can think of are the Batman and Superman cartoons from the 90’s. The animation for Superman was done on whiteboards (if I have that terminology right) and Batman was drawn and painted on blackboards. So while the animation team used the same colors (attitude) the look and feel was different because of the background they were painted on (consciousness).
I think the blogs and the rest of it are symbols of the change we are seeing.
And in the interest of others, I will now shut my trap about it. I wouldn’t want “scare” anyone… more than I already do.
HyperIon
dream on. they may think it’s a gimmick but they won’t send back the check. and wasn’t Michael D. whining a few days ago about not getting one?
yes, mistrust & suspicion of government is at a very high level. (and look what had to happen to get THERE.) but that does NOT mean that politics/politicians are going to change. you will still have to vote them all out and find replacements that are : 1. willing to serve 2. competent 3. honest 4. electable
good luck with that. WE elected these panderers. when i see people supporting politicians who state up front that pain & suffering are coming–everyone suffering, then i’ll change my mind. taxes are going to have to go up and benefits are going to have to go done. yet none of the candidates are willing to say that, no? why, do you suppose?
i’m not saying that it can’t happen. but it’ll take a lot more than 80% saying the stimulus package won’t work. people are going to have to change fundamentally. we are not there yet.
garage mahal
Obama didn’t vote? Shocking!
cleek
setting a date for withdrawal will only embolden the terrorists
nightjar
Not everybody, but about 10 to 15% of the voting populace that lives with a political stupid sack over their head. And when voting day comes they stumble down to the polling place, like so many awoken zombies, and vote on 10 year old issues, or issues with idgit slogans designed to slip thru their self sustained ignorance.
I know this cause I was one for most of my life.
Tax Analyst
Does this mean I can grow my hair long again? It still will, if I let it.
Punchy
Dont you have a job? Or have you gone full-on hippy and have grown the hair long, picked up the bong, and follow String Cheese on their summer tour?
nightjar
No, it means you’re about to enter the Fifth Dimension, or your there already.
Teak111
$1800 from the govment just arrived my account. Gee, how should I spend it?
Probably pay down CC debt.
John Cole
I just said I am at the office. Did you think I meant the set of the sitcom?
Ninerdave
BWAAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA HAAA HAHAHAHA
Yeah right.
You’re looking at it from the wrong point of view. There are 20% of the people who think it will help. That’s 20% of the public who vote for pandering bullshit.
Ninerdave
Well who’s going to fight against the dis-enfranchisement of FL and MI?? People’s voices will not be heard!! Whitey will subjugated to second class status! Who will stop Flava Flav from being the Sec. of State?
This is horrible news.
ThymeZone
I think Genine has it right, this is a realignment year.
I am enjoying watching the pundits get everything wrong and watching voters think for themselves.
It was only a matter of time before the 911 manipulations started to fail and the pandering started to wear thin.
Barack is one of the big reasons why this process will accelerate and the country will start to get smarter.
The Hillabots still don’t get this, but if you just look at the last 3 weeks, you can see the effects. Hillary basically lost Indiana because she pandered her ass off while Barack talked calmly about long term solutions to problems. She ended up with an 11k vote margin which is around a half a percent. A state she could have won if she had not taken the low road. As it is, history will probably indicate that Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos is the reason why she won that slim margin at all.
Watch Limbaugh try to pufferize his way through the next six months. He is backing a corpse and we are backing a rock star.
This is going to be fun.
Zifnab
Right, but you need slightly more than 20% to get elected. Hepitatis polls better than 20%. (Btw, I absolutely love that poll – it set the absolute baseline for shittiness).
There is definitely a different attitude unfolding. Back when people thought taxes were too high, they were more than ready to accept tax cuts as the answer to their problems. Still, the economic stimulus isn’t a tax cut, its a handout (or hand-back if you prefer) that comes from the government credit card. People look at the price of gas and the price of food or rent and they recognize exactly how much $600 is actually worth.
I don’t think the underlying consensus has changed, though. People – by and large – still recognize why taxes exist and accept that they must be paid. They still recognize what tax rate they consider to be “too high”. We just happen to be under that number. So additional tax breaks have lost their appeal.
Likewise, there is a certain amount of debt Americans will tolerate. We passed that total inside Bush’s first term. Racking up more debt is less and less acceptable.
These underlying principles – too much tax and too much debt – haven’t changed. The politicians who set the rules have changed, but the undercurrent of public opinion has remained relatively constant since the nation was founded. The stimulus package doesn’t meet with the public desire to restore equilibrium, so it is rejected. I don’t think this is a change of public opinion, however. Just a change of situation.
Nationa
Right, exciting times, as in many people can’t afford high energy prices.
I talked to a bike shop owner recently who said he’s selling bikes like crazy. Who needs a car if you have a bike? So, it’s pouring out and you have to pedal to work? Now that’s exciting, because it’s the new paradigm. Shivering in winter because you can’t pay for heating oil. Precious.
Halteclere
Maybe there is a real change underfoot because, if one good thing can be said about the Bush administration, they proved that hollow gestures, insincere promises, shiny distractions and dog whistling doesn’t make anyone better off.
It is my hope that the Bush Administration has significantly tuned up people’s bullshit detector, and proved that a failure of a government to not properly govern comes back to bite us all on the ass.
Ninerdave
Then you couple that with the 20% who think Bush is God, the 20% who want to have a beer with McCain, the 20% that think liberals are the root of all evil and you start building a coalition that Hillary would be jealous of.
I’m a cynic, while I see this as a landslide year for Dems, I see that mostly as a vote against the GOP. I don’t see any conclusive evidence of this change in attitudes. I hope for the betterment of the country I am wrong. I really do.
I think my cynicism comes from the fact that for most of my life, I’ve seen people either not giving a shit, too stupid to have an opinion, or worse: stupid with an opinion. This isn’t just a liberal vs. conservative thing either. There are quite a few smart conservatives out there. I even hold a view view points that are conservative. No, this is just the general public by and large are fools.
Wilfred
That’s it. I don’t know if anyone will actually get smarter but President Obama (and damn do I like the sound of that) will project the kind of reasonableness and calmness people need to actually fucking think about things, instead of rushing off stupidly from fiasco to fiasco.
It’ll be the people he brings with him, too. People like Samantha Power for one, who had Clinton’s number from the start.
EnderWiggin
OMG Looks like the morons at Taylor Marsh might actually help kill off the Clinton campaign.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/09/clinton-supporters-send-l_n_100979.html
SamFromUtah
Then you couple that with the 20% who think Bush is God, the 20% who want to have a beer with McCain, the 20% that think liberals are the root of all evil and you start building a coalition that Hillary would be jealous of.
If only those groups overlapped!
Fledermaus
I tend to think of the rebate checks as Bush’s final blow off to the country. As in ‘sorry for wrecking the country for the last 8 years – here’s $600 for your troubles’
Krista
I loved the prank when Jim stole Andy’s cellphone (with the very distinctive ring of Andy’s a cappella group singing “Rockin’ Robin”), hid it up in the dropped ceiling, and kept phoning it every 5 minutes.
gypsy howell
They’re mixing up big batches of Kool Aid over at Larry
Jonestown’sJohnson’s place.nightjar
ATTACK OF THE E-MAILS. OMG! What a bunch of meanies. I smell a B movie script.
garage mahal
OMG Looks like the morons at Taylor Marsh might actually help kill off the Clinton campaign
Un.Fuck.Ing.Believable.
Writing letters in support of their candidate? Have they no shame? So now they’re racist republicans, AND letter writers too??
STOP THIS WOMAN NOW!!!!
Dennis - SGMM
“I left a couple of extra Franklins on the dresser for ya’. And stop sniveling; ya’ ain’t bleedin’ that much.”
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I’m single so I’ll probably only get $600. I’m going to get it cashed into $1 bills and see how many I can stuff in the garters of the ladies at The Admiral.
The economy isn’t the only thing that needs some, ahem, stimulation.
Genine
Of course some things aren’t going well. What I was referring to was a general positive direction I see happening.
This election is but one example. People were pretty predictable. Whatever the polls said, that’s the way they generally went. “Everyone” knew that the GE match-up was going to be Guiliani/ Clinton. That pair was already anointed by the press- and it didn’t happen.
For a long time no one knew what was going on because no one was acting as they were “suppose” to. Whether that is for good or ill, I leave that to other people to decide for themselves. Sure, there are still plenty of “sheeple”, but more and more I see people beginning to think for themselves. Whether I agree with what they think or not, I still think its good. It’s a definite improvement. I’ve never seen such a struggle between old and new paradigms before and I don’t think it’s bad.
And, as with all changes, things are going to suck sometimes, or half the time or some of the time. However way people want to get through it, its up to them. Me? I’d rather think of the change in a positive manner.
Of course as things change, the things that want to stay the same fight to the death. To quote Rob Brezsny (badly), “Don’t worry about the roar of old dinosaurs as they pass away. Just keep your eyes towards heaven and let the devils have their due.” (note: he’s not religious, he’s just using that terminology)
And that’s what I choose to do. Others can do, feel and think whatever else they want to. It’s none of my affair.
OriGuy
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. — A. Lincoln
I think we can now quantify the first category.
Wilfred
The Arabs said it best a thousand years ago: The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on.
Teak111
Uh Rusty, that is not an office safe website. Have not been to a strip club in years, not sure how far 1800 would take me. Wait, I have been to a stripe club recently, in GTA4. Think the lap dance cost my $50. Great game, BTW.
FupDuck
wasn’t that already defined as the 27% crazification factor?
Dennis - SGMM
OT but the shadenfreude is too delicious:
MSNBC is saying that disgraced Republican Congressman Vito Fossella will be resigning soon. Turns out that Fossella was so strong on family values that he had two families.
D. Mason
I think you might have missed the mark just a bit here. No one ever thinks they’re sending too little or even just enough of their hard earned bucks to the government, especially when the services they’re paying for are toxic(war on drugs), shoddy(no child left behind) or non-existent(necessity of war on terra). I think the reason people aren’t responding to the call of tax cuts is because they’ve realized that tax cuts no longer come with spending cuts and when you inflate the currency to give a tax cut it’s really not a tax cut anyway, it’s just a shift in where the money gets “lost”.
The Other Steve
No. Just a number of articles. One about clinton financials and meeting with her financiers next week. but the main buzz is swirling around super delegates. Obama picked up 9 just today.
Rasmussen stopping tracking polling is another piece of info.
The general talk is just all about when does she quit. I’m projecting it is when oil hits $140 a barrell two weeks from now. :-)
Wilfred
Off topic, but Teddy Kennedy just shit on Clinton:
binzinerator
I tend to think it’s more like a rapist who thinks he can make amends, after he knocked us down, stripped and sodomized us, by nicely giving us back our underwear.
The Other Steve
It’s always $20 around here.
Although now the songs only last 30 seconds. :-)
Punchy
$600 washingtons can get you a crotchload of table “dances”. From what I hear. From my friends. Who’ve gone, without me. Every time.
God I hope my mom doesn’t surf the blogs.
Josh
Genine, have you heard of the book, ‘The Fourth Turning,’ by Strauss and Howe? Their hypothesis is that Anglo-American society goes through a cycle of four ‘turnings’ about every century or so. By their accounts, we’ve been transitioning from an ‘Unraveling’ to a ‘Crisis’ for the last few years.
cleek
binzinerator FTW
Zifnab
I disagree entirely. The general public – by and large – knows what the general public needs. We need food on the table, a roof over our heads, and a way to get from point A to point B. What we do is focused on satisfying those basic needs first and our hedonistic pleasures down the line (“Hello, ladies of the Admiral! (:” )
You can trick some of the people into falling for religious hooey for some of the time. You can trick some of the people into diving under their desks while you shout “Terror Alert” some of the time. But eventually people wise up.
The GOP made a national movement out of deceiving the general public. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on grassroots and syndicated radio and national TV ads that were specifically tailored to lie to the American public. They, and their corporate allies and their theocratic buddies and their neo-con co-conspirators, have spent decades refining the art of wide-scale public deception. You can’t blow all that hard work and effort off to blame everyone else as stupid.
Give Rove, Murdock, Gingrich, et al their due. They’ve earned it.
gypsy howell
You gotta hand it to them – it’s worked for about 35 years.
Genine
Actually, no, I haven’t.
That theory sounds similar to many others. According to some sources (I’m not sure if its true or not) that theory is not uncommon. You’ve probably heard of the whole Mayan calendar business, where we’re suppose to be entering the 5th world in 2012. With an Incan Calendar, we’re suppose to be entering the 7th world in 2012. In some Hindu sects, the age of Kali either starts or ends in 2012 and so on and so forth.
I don’t put much stock into these theories. I do find it interesting that, supposedly, all of these different cultures in different parts of the world has a huge time shift in 2012.(I say “supposedly” because I have some reservations about some of the researchers) But, beyond that, I don’t really think about them much. The Mayan and Incan calendar business is all very much debatable, with passionate arguers on both sides. There are many different Hindu Sects, so one doesn’t have a stronghold on truth.
Another aspect to all these “world-change” theories is that all of the ones I know, all state that the shift will start in 2008. I think that’s interesting, considering what is going on. But, at the same time, I don’t read too much into it. I take a very detached, scientific view to a lot of this stuff and a lot of it is bullshit with some interesting tidbits interspersed throughout.
But even if all these “world-change” stuff is true, I don’t think it’s the end of the world. It’s just a change, which will have its difficulties. However, I think it will all, ultimately, be for the best.
Zifnab
Did you ever see the movie “Pi”? This mathematician manages to accidentally calculate some prime constant number that is the key to the cyclical nature of the world. Basically, with this number and the proper equations he can predict the future in the same way that you can predict the circumference of a circle from Pi and the Diameter.
It’s kinda a neat idea. People act in cyclical, predictable patterns that are well documented. The “terrible twos”, teen age rebellion, the tendency for people to become more liberal in their 20s and more conservative in their 50s, etc etc.
I think there is some merit to it all. Certainly, there is a major political re-alignment in America every 20 years that you can practically set your watch against. Whether this is some mystical mumbo jumbo or the grim reality of basic math and human psychology… I guess that’s up to the reader to determine.
cleek
all you need to know about economic cycles can be found in Stereolab’s “Ping Pong”
be sure to sing it with a female French accent.
t jasper parnell
I realize this is supposed to be snarktastic and all. I have neither owned nor had regular access to a car for 9 or 10 yrs and ride my bike everywhere in all weather and you are right, it is exciting. Not only that but I see more and more people riding their bikes to and from work and elsewhere. They smile and wave and I smile and wave back. Bikes, and not Obama, are the change you can believe in.
Soylent Green
Two factors:
First, the Puritan vs. Enlightenment dichotomy that defines this nation’s origins. The pendulum swings between the poles of freethinking and belief, social liberty and social control, and so forth.
Second, generational swings. Each new generation tends to repudiate the one that preceded it.
Darkrose
“Gas is $4.00 a gallon, and it’s okay to be an asshole!”
/Serial
Soylent Green
What t jasper said. Not to start the bike vs car smugness contest, but some of ride all over all year long and enjoy the hell out of it. It does help to live in a bike-friendly environment. Portland, Oregon, is such a place. Sure it’s raining all winter on my way to work, so what? I dress for conditions, rain jacket, rain pants, shoe covers, and get to work dry, warm, energized for the day, and healthier overall. I’m down to driving 2,000 miles a year and riding 8,000 (most of those for pleasure), and I’m 56 years old. I don’t have anything against people driving — except to the degree that they aren’t paying attention to me sharing the road. But the bias people have toward getting out of their cars runs pretty deep.
Two things look to me to be excellent financial investments: first, companies that make bicycles, and second, tattoo-removal parlors.
Just Some Fuckhead Hard-Working White Clinton Supporter
Deep down, I think yer right. I don’t see a way in hell McCain can win in November.
However, I was convinced Kerry was going to beat Bush in 2004 (Thanks for the letdown, Kos – optomistic asshole!) And I thought there was no way Gore could lose in 2000, especially with me, newly-minted Democrat, working my ass off to get him elected. I mean, I’m seriously important and my endorsement, cash and hard work used to mean something.
So this time around while I’d love to see Obama win I’m setting my sights on him just making it to November 9th alive.
Everything else will either be delightfully serendipitous or mildly disappointing.
Just Some Fuckhead Hard-Working White Clinton Supporter
Having a fundamentalist upbringing, I’ve often thought the 2012 date could coincide nicely with the midpoint of the seven year tribulation. Using that scenario, it isn’t clear to me at this point which candidate is the most likely candidate to be the AntiChrist but I know some of my fundamental acquaintances are scared it could be Obama.
I tease them, “Three and a half good years is three and a half more than we got with your godboy Bush.”
Dennis - SGMM
I hope that people are going to actually pay attention to what the candidates are saying this year. Many middle-class Americans who felt themselves immune from the vicissitudes of the economy are beginning to see a decline in their quality of life and there’s nothing like having to decide whether to skimp on gas or skimp on food to focus one’s attention. I seriously doubt that promises of tax cuts or more war are going to have much resonance. On the other hand, I think that Obama needs to propose some concrete programs that will address America’s needs (Infrastructure, for one example, teacher training for another) that will put people to work and repair some of the things that have been so badly neglected for the past couple of decades.
KRK
My question about these stimulus checks is the same question I had the first time we went through this, at the beginning of the Bush administration: How many hundreds of millions of dollars did they spend printing and mailing “you may be receiving a check” notices to every taxpayer (household?) in the country. Just send the fricking check and include an explanatory note if you think it’s necessary.
At least this time they seemed to have toned down the rhetoric. As I recall, the advance notice for the first stimulus check read like a GWB campaign flier, something like “You will soon be receiving direct proof of the beneficence of our glorious leader George W. Bush (may he reign forever).”
Bey
$600 – consumerrrrrific!
(1) $140 Cat condo
(2) $250 Area rug
(3) $100 Obama campaign
(4) $10 Spicy Green beans from PF Changs. Yum.
jake
I can see the history books now:
“By 2010 Democrats had gained a veto-proof majority in both the House and Senate because Republicans couldn’t keep it in their pants …”
I live for the day when any pandering putz who gibbers about Family Values and Strong Morals is instantly met with knowing looks and snickers.
John S.
Also known as Psychohistory.
Isaac Aasimov gets ripped off a lot.
Notorious P.A.T.
I nominate Tasha for Balloon Juice’s guest blogger.
TenguPhule
$40,000,000 to tell people what they already knew (courtesy of the IRS)
Birdzilla
Getting the goverment to solve these problems is like putting a fire out with gasoline
binzinerator
OMG BIRDZILLA FIGURED OUT HOW TO WORK THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON!!!11!! AND USE SPELLCHECK!!111!!1!!!!!
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