Is Obama's Approval Rating Going to Plunge into the Toilet at Record Speed?

[intention]

Voyager, thanks for your thoughful and interesting response. My comments follow

@Voyager

Sorry, I forgot that you are fortunate enough not to have your nose in this mess every morning. True, tax cuts are not the issue (though I swear I read some Republican legislator pushing them) but the ideological purity here is no tax increase, even when it is basically impossible to cut spending more than has been proposed - certainly not enough to balance the budget. Democrats can cut spending - and it will be painful - and expect that Democratic voters will see the need. It appears that any Republican voting for even the smallest tax increase is at serious risk of losing in the next primary. There are only two additional state senator remotely likely to cast the last vote needed, they are both from moderate districts, but they seem to fear for their political life.

Actually, although I live on a South Pacific island, I have a house in California, with a wonderful (and long-suffening) wife and daughter awaiting my return in a few months. So I follow the CA situation quite closely.

I doubt very much if it is “impossible to cut spending more than has been proposed”. I read this kind of thing about the stimulus bill as well, then I look in the bill and find vouchers for people to change over to digital TV … yeah, we’re cutting to the bone, all right …

The 2008 CA budget was $131 billion. A mere ten years ago, the CA budget was less than half that size. I don’t know anyone who claims that we’re getting twice the service, in general the level of service seems to have declined … which means that there’s got to be serious waste and mismanagement going on. California has been so profligate with its money, and has borrowed so much, that it currently has the worst credit rating of all of the fifty states.

The problem is not that there is no fat in the CA budget. The problem is nobody wants to get off the gravy train … but don’t worry, uncle sugar will give CA some money to keep them on the train. Everyone is up in arms that the bankers, who profited from the runup to the crash, are getting bailed out. But the same is true of California State Govt. It profited hugely from the runup, expanded like a balloon being blown up. But now that the balloon has popped, just like the bankers, it wants to be bailed out … Hey. Fire some people. Sell some government cars. Cut some programs. If I ran the zoo, I’d say “OK, everyone in the State Government, myself included, is going to take a 10% tax cut.” But oh, no, can’t do that … two years ago, the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Insurance Commissioner, and Board of Equalization members all got an 18% raise in their salaries. Then, the very next year, there was a 5 percent salary increase for the Attorney General and Superintendent of Public Instruction and a 2.75 percent increase for the other offices listed. They’ve seen their salaries go up by 21 percent in two years … how much are they being asked to sacrifice? (In passing, I note that Governor Schwarzenegger has threatened to reduce the wages of state employees … which ones? I was afraid you’d ask that. He plans to move the very bottom of the pay scale down to $6.55 for all of the lowest paid employees … funny that he hasn’t mentioned the salaries of the executives …)

I’d knock the executives back to the former scale. I’m sure a member of the Board of Equalization can go back to living on their 2006 salary, a paltry $132,000 per year, without pinching too much … heck, that’s $61 per hour, shouldn’t be too tough.

Nor is it just high officials living high off the hog. A newly hired State Park Interpreter makes $50,000 per year, and after they’ve moved up the ladder they make $70,000 … like the signs used to say in WWII to encourage gasoline rationing, “Is This Trip Necessary”? In an economic crisis, do we really need someone in the State Parks to “interpret” nature for us? The freakin’ Stock Clerks working for the CA Gov’t are making $17.65 an hour … plus pension … plus medical … plus dental … are we surprised that the State is going broke?

When I have a year when I don’t make much money, the first thing I do is seriously tighten my belt. Not just go through the motions. Cut everything I can cut. Then and only then do I consider other options.

But the CA Gov’t wants to stay big and fat through good times and bad. They want their salaries and their perks and their programs to sail untouched through the financial storm.

Hey, I’d like that too …

@Voyager

I take this to mean optimize what is important, not which is perhaps easiest to measure…In many things there is an exponential curve of cost vs quality, where it is more and more expensive to get that last bit of quality when you near perfection. At some point it is much better to say good enough and devote those resources into something more useful. 99% may be better in the global sense than 100%.

Thanks for the clarification. I would agree with that. But I don’t see how it applies to whether digital TV subsidies should be in a stimulus bill. I don’t see where it means we have to accept second best because of some artificial urgency. See below.

@Voyager

If we waited two weeks would we have a bill at all? Would there be pressure on the few Republican senators who voted for it? And doesn’t Congress have better things to do, like doing something about the housing market? In any case, why do you think 2 weeks is adequate for a bill of this size? Why not a month, or two months?

Man, people love the fallacy of the excluded middle. The choices are not a bad bill or nothing, you’ve excluded a host of other possibilities.

If I ran the zoo, I’d say to the assembled congresscrooks “OK, we need money right away, a hundred billion to be spent in six months. We need a bill this week, put in the stuff you can all agree on right now, and we’ll leave the rest for next month”. That would get us the money we need right away without too much dissention, and give us the couple months we need to discuss and debate the contentious items.

@Voyager

A lot of the so-called pork isn’t even in the bill. The Las Vegas to LA train, for instance, is not in the bill. Money for intercity rail is. Maybe that is a good idea, maybe it isn’t, but we can fight that out when the money for that kind of thing is doled out - and there is no rush in that item. Let’s not allow the fight about the long term items stop getting money needed right away to the people.

In fact, I’d say we’ve taken too long, but there is no way of moving faster with Bush in office. Remember the planning began even before Obama was sworn in. As for the delay, I suspect the wheels were set in motion as soon as it passed. Passage was at risk, not his signing the bill, so I doubt any time was lost at all.

We only had this huge, ridiculous pressure because everyone signed on to your frickin’ excluded middle idea. There was a way to do this at a reasonable pace. We didn’t take it. We didn’t take to heart your excellent advice above where you say “Let’s not allow the fight about the long term items stop getting money needed right away to the people”, we didn’t split the fight, pass the short term items first and worry about the long term items afterwards.

Ah, well, such is life. As bills go, this one is not bad … but I’m getting kinda tired of bills that are “not bad”. Couldn’t we have one that is “good” once in a while, especially one that is this important?

PS - You say “doesn’t Congress have better things to do”? Better things to do than be less than slapdash about spending nearly a trillion borrowed dollars? Like what? Argue about whether Mapplethorpe should get $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts?

Besides, if Congress has better things to do, they should be doing them. However, everyone is saying this Bill is more important than that other stuff, much too important to just wait its turn … kinda shoots a hole in your “they’ve got better things to do” theory.

If this bill is in fact that important (and I for one think it is), then we should give it the time merited by its importance.

[suranyi]

@intention

I doubt very much if it is “impossible to cut spending more than has been proposed”. I read this kind of thing about the stimulus bill as well, then I look in the bill and find vouchers for people to change over to digital TV … yeah, we’re cutting to the bone, all right …

The 2008 CA budget was $131 billion. A mere ten years ago, the CA budget was less than half that size. I don’t know anyone who claims that we’re getting twice the service, in general the level of service seems to have declined … which means that there’s got to be serious waste and mismanagement going on. California has been so profligate with its money, and has borrowed so much, that it currently has the worst credit rating of all of the fifty states.

There are many causes of the problems in California. But one that has been brought up recently was the passage a few years ago of the three strikes law. That has led to an explosion in the prison population, and a subsequent massive increase in spending on prisons and incarceration expenses. Three strikes was a proposition heavily supported by Republican interests.

So it’s not just Democrats that produced the spending problem that the California government admittedly has.

Ed

[Voyager]

@intention

Voyager, thanks for your thoughful and interesting response. My comments follow

Actually, although I live on a South Pacific island, I have a house in California, with a wonderful (and long-suffening) wife and daughter awaiting my return in a few months. So I follow the CA situation quite closely.

I doubt very much if it is “impossible to cut spending more than has been proposed”. I read this kind of thing about the stimulus bill as well, then I look in the bill and find vouchers for people to change over to digital TV … yeah, we’re cutting to the bone, all right …

The 2008 CA budget was $131 billion. A mere ten years ago, the CA budget was less than half that size. I don’t know anyone who claims that we’re getting twice the service, in general the level of service seems to have declined … which means that there’s got to be serious waste and mismanagement going on. California has been so profligate with its money, and has borrowed so much, that it currently has the worst credit rating of all of the fifty states.

The Murky News did a really good study on this. It turns out that the spending controlled by the legislature, like education, rose slower than inflation over the past 8 years or so. The stuff that rose faster than inflation was spending mandated by the propositions - especially spending on prisons. So, we have met the enemy and he is us. We the people of California screwed the pooch voting for this stuff, and so we should pay the taxes for it. We get to pass spending bills with a 1/2 vote, but we need a 2/3 vote to pay for them. That’s why our credit sucks - and we don’t even have good schools to show for it. Just lots of prisons.

I’d knock the executives back to the former scale. I’m sure a member of the Board of Equalization can go back to living on their 2006 salary, a paltry $132,000 per year, without pinching too much … heck, that’s $61 per hour, shouldn’t be too tough.

That is actually chicken feed for a responsible job. Your average mid-level computer designer in Silicon Valley makes more than that. I agree that big raises send a bad message, but compared to industry even top government execs make nothing. A good friend of mine was treasurer of the state of New Jersey, on the news all the time, responsible for billions of bucks. I think I made more than he did. When the governor lost and he went into private industry, his salary doubled for a much easier job. Now, not paying the idiots in the legislature when there is no budget is an idea I can get behind. If there was some way of not paying only the naysayers that would e better.

When I have a year when I don’t make much money, the first thing I do is seriously tighten my belt. Not just go through the motions. Cut everything I can cut. Then and only then do I consider other options.

The proposed budget cuts over $15 billion. That is a bit more than can be accounted for by high salaries. But, remember the issue isn’t anyone refusing to cut another billion or two. The issue is that the Republicans refuse to vote for any tax increases at all. The $40 billion budget problem is not a result of spending only. Tax revenues have plummeted, far more than predicted. There is $14.1 billion of new taxes proposed - and that deal was worked out with the Republican leadership. If the mass of Republicans proposed say $13.5 billion in taxes and a bit more in spending cuts, they’d all be able to go home. Remember, the cause of the stalemate is the intransigence of the Republicans in the legislature, not the Democrats of the governor.

Man, people love the fallacy of the excluded middle. The choices are not a bad bill or nothing, you’ve excluded a host of other possibilities.

Do you think that going over the bill in more detail would get more Republican votes? Remember, the ones in the Senate who signed on got their voices heard. Momentum is important, especially near the beginning of a term. The story about a delay would be that Obama’s bill is mired in Congress, and that he can’t get anything done. Obama handled this quite well. He very loudly offered them the chance to get behind a bipartisan bill, they were intransigent, and he got his bill and more support from the public. He now knows he can run over the Republicans, and it is up to them to offer to compromise. In any case, plenty of people worry the bill isn’t big enough as it is.

If I ran the zoo, I’d say to the assembled congresscrooks “OK, we need money right away, a hundred billion to be spent in six months. We need a bill this week, put in the stuff you can all agree on right now, and we’ll leave the rest for next month”. That would get us the money we need right away without too much dissention, and give us the couple months we need to discuss and debate the contentious items.

In a perfect world. Obama learned politics in Chicago, and this is a perfect chance to get lots of good stuff passed without sniping about every billion. Like I said, the next few weeks is going to see a lot of other important stuff going on; I’d rather they work on housing and not spend a few days arguing about the chairs in the new DHS building. The Republicans want to be obstructionist, but the voters last November sent a message that they should be run over.

PS - You say “doesn’t Congress have better things to do”? Better things to do than be less than slapdash about spending nearly a trillion borrowed dollars? Like what? Argue about whether Mapplethorpe should get $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts?

Besides, if Congress has better things to do, they should be doing them. However, everyone is saying this Bill is more important than that other stuff, much too important to just wait its turn … kinda shoots a hole in your “they’ve got better things to do” theory.

If this bill is in fact that important (and I for one think it is), then we should give it the time merited by its importance.

I don’t hear them doing a lot of nonsense at the moment. I agree that they shouldn’t get involved with such trivialities - let’s not forget trying to keep a poor brain dead woman in Florida alive. If all they had on their plate for the next month was junk like that, I’d agree that they could spend more time on the big items. But I want them to get the foreclosure problem fixed, and the bank problem fixed, and the medical insurance problem fixed, and maybe shore up social security the little bit it needs shoring also. I hope Peolosi and Reid keep them on track. Remember, the nonsense you mention comes from the Republicans playing to the hard right. I hope the Dems don’t play a similar game. So far, so good.

[intention]

@suranyi

There are many causes of the problems in California. But one that has been brought up recently was the passage a few years ago of the three strikes law. That has led to an explosion in the prison population, and a subsequent massive increase in spending on prisons and incarceration expenses. Three strikes was a proposition heavily supported by Republican interests.

So it’s not just Democrats that produced the spending problem that the California government admittedly has.

Ed

I said nothing about which party was to blame. If I were asked, I’d say “both”.

The problem with prison population isn’t three strikes. Its the antiquated drug laws. Some court recently ruled some prisoners have to be let go because of overcrowding. I, like you, would like to reduce the prison population. Given a choice between drug outlaws and three strikers, I know which ones I’d let go … but we digress.

[Voyager]

@intention

I said nothing about which party was to blame. If I were asked, I’d say “both”.

The problem with prison population isn’t three strikes. Its the antiquated drug laws. Some court recently ruled some prisoners have to be let go because of overcrowding. I, like you, would like to reduce the prison population. Given a choice between drug outlaws and three strikers, I know which ones I’d let go … but we digress.

I read something recently about the money we’d save if everyone in jail for marijuana use only was let go - but I think it was a letter, and not citeworthy. Still, three strikes is what is new - but I’m in favor of it also.

I’m guessing that DEA and DoJ are going to back off the the medical marijuana clubs real soon now - but they won’t be publicizing it. That might help some.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@intention

Absent the bill, we will be passing on less debt.

Really? If we do nothing, our economy will remain stable or improve?

Don’t know where you were during those years, but I heard lots of people say during both those administrations that we were leaving crushing debt burdens to future generations … perhaps you weren’t listening.

Oh, yeah, there were lots of people expressing concern… they were called Democrats, and we were busying trying to fight supply side economics ignorance while being labeled tax and spend liberals. If you aren’t aware that conservatives still look at the 80’s as economically good times and hold Reagan up as the gold standard of conservative governance, perhaps you aren’t paying attention.

Take a look at the relative sizes of the numbers in question. Then consider that the 50’s were three decades after the Great Depression.

Okay, looked at. Okay, considered. By the way, when exactly did you expect the children born in the thirties to start paying off previous debt? When they were in their teens? Or would you cut them slack and let them cruise by until the 60’s?

New-found? Sorry, what you are trying to say is you just found it. It’s been around for decades. A lot of us have been expressing this very same sentiment for years. My father certainly said it loud and clear about Reagan’s budget busting ways … and my father was a staunch Republican … and he was right.

Staunch republicans elected him twice, and elected George W. Bush twice. They elected GHW Bush only once, and that was because he did the economically smart thing of raising a tax to address a recession. So, again, I am unimpressed with the “staunch conservatives” record on concern for mounting debt.

Sounds like you think that this $750 billion is going to get magically repaid by shoemaker’s elves after midnight or something. If you’re not concerned about the effect of the bill on future generations, you’re not following the story.

No, I think it will be magically repaid by an expanding economy and by the decapitation of the tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves zombie. If we can just avoid a Reagan/Bush-like Republican for a few decades, we’ll be just fine. Unfortunately, there are none among the present Republicans, and the American people have been known to be wrong…from time to time.

[Shodan]

They elected GHW Bush only once, and that was because he did the economically smart thing of raising a tax to address a recession.

So the smart thing for Obama to do would be to raise taxes to address the current recession. Why then do you support the stimulus package?

Regards,
Shodan

[Maeglin]

@Shodan

So the smart thing for Obama to do would be to raise taxes to address the current recession. Why then do you support the stimulus package?

Regards,
Shodan

The only thing our current economic woes have in common with those at the end of Bush’s term is the word “recession”.

[Magiver]

@Frostillicus

Getting back to he OP, President Obama has been in office almost a month now and his approval rating has plunged all the way to 68%. I don’t see how he lasts the year. :rolleyes:

http://www.dailykos.com/

It’s 62% today (Feb 19). Add to this any fallout from Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuels ethics problems and it will sink lower. Rahm accepted 5 years of free rent from Representative Rosa DeLauro without disclosing it. This goes with a quid pro quo of party money paid to her Husband’s polling business. For a President who thinks the wealthy should pay more taxes he seems to surround himself with slum dog millionaires.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Magiver

It’s 62% today (Feb 19).

Nope, still 68%. If you want to look at trends, you have to stay within the same poll, and Daily Kos != Gallup.

[Magiver]

@Hentor_the_Barbarian

Nope, still 68%. If you want to look at trends, you have to stay within the same poll, and Daily Kos != Gallup.

Really, I didn’t know there were rules for polling data. Thanks for sharing.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Magiver

Really, I didn’t know there were rules for polling data. Thanks for sharing.

Glad to be of help. Yeah, didn’t think it would be confusing, but sure, a drop of 68 to 62 would perhaps be remarkable. However, if you look within your select poll, Gallup, you’ll see that 62 is a drop of four points from 2/14, but only 2 points from 64 on 1/27.

I’m sure you didn’t want to give a false impression that there’s been some significant change in Obama’s approval rating, did you?

[Magiver]

@Hentor_the_Barbarian

Glad to be of help. Yeah, didn’t think it would be confusing, but sure, a drop of 68 to 62 would perhaps be remarkable. However, if you look within your select poll, Gallup, you’ll see that 62 is a drop of four points from 2/14, but only 2 points from 64 on 1/27.

I’m sure you didn’t want to give a false impression that there’s been some significant change in Obama’s approval rating, did you?

You mean that’s going down. No, not at all.

[Kimstu]

@Magiver

Really, I didn’t know there were rules for polling data.

Well, it’s because different polls have slightly different methodologies, so for best accuracy in evaluating trends you want to do diachronic (over time) comparisons between results from the same poll. That is, you compare Gallup results with other Gallup results, Pew with Pew, and so on.

For some reason, the most up-to-date explanation of different poll methodologies that I can find is this 2004 article, but it looks pretty informative.

[Magiver]

@Kimstu

Well, it’s because different polls have slightly different methodologies, so for best accuracy in evaluating trends you want to do diachronic (over time) comparisons between results from the same poll. That is, you compare Gallup results with other Gallup results, Pew with Pew, and so on.

For some reason, the most up-to-date explanation of different poll methodologies that I can find is this 2004 article, but it looks pretty informative.

That’s fine except it doesn’t alter the idea that someone can quote 68% as if it’s gospel. When polling, methodology is not a differing unit of measure such as Celsius or Fahrenheit. The scale is the same.

[Kimstu]

@Magiver

That’s fine except it doesn’t alter the idea that someone can quote 68% as if it’s gospel.

I don’t think it’s the 68% figure per se that Hentor was insisting on, but rather the necessity of comparing the 68% figure from the Daily Kos poll with other figures from the Daily Kos poll, rather than with figures from the Gallup poll.

@Magiver

When polling, methodology is not a differing unit of measure such as Celsius or Fahrenheit. The scale is the same.

Yeah, but there’s a vertical offset between different polls. If on a particular day Daily Kos finds that Obama’s approval rating is 68% while Gallup finds that it’s 64%, and then on a subsequent day Gallup gets 62%, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Obama’s approval rating has dropped six percentage points in the intervening time. That’s comparing apples and oranges. You have to measure trends over time within the same poll, so you don’t mistakenly include a cross-poll offset as part of a trend.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Magiver

That’s fine except it doesn’t alter the idea that someone can quote 68% as if it’s gospel. When polling, methodology is not a differing unit of measure such as Celsius or Fahrenheit. The scale is the same.

The scale is the same, but the measuring device is different. For example, the Daily Kos poll has Obama at 69% today. That’s 1 point up from their last poll numbers, but 7 points up from Gallup’s.

How would you explain that? The scale is the same, right?

[Magiver]

@Hentor_the_Barbarian

The scale is the same, but the measuring device is different. For example, the Daily Kos poll has Obama at 69% today. That’s 1 point up from their last poll numbers, but 7 points up from Gallup’s.

How would you explain that? The scale is the same, right?

One survey is more accurate than the other.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

Poll Show Broad SUpport for Obama’s Leadership.

Boy, I bet your face is red, huh, Shag?

Daniel

[DSeid]

Gallup’s polling is interesting. Short version is that he’s about par for the course. But some stuff of note in the details.

According to weekly aggregates of Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviews, Obama has lost no support from Democrats and independents since taking office, but his approval rating from Republicans has dropped steadily week by week, from 41% at the start of his term to just 30% today.