Americans reject GOP happy talk on domestic economy

October 10, 2007

In yesterday’s debate for Republican presidential hopefuls, Fred Thompson was asked why two-thirds of the nation believes that we are either in a recession or headed toward one. Thompson rejected Americans’ perceptions, describing the economy as “rosy.”

When CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo followed up, asking what explains the discontent in the public, Thompson said there were “pockets in the economy,” but the public hasn’t heard “the greatest story never told.” In other words, the economy is strong, but we’re just too dumb to realize it.

It looks like there are quite a few people living in those “pockets.”

A growing number of people say the economy is the nation’s top problem, with the less educated among the most worried, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed Tuesday.

Yet even with a credit crunch and soft housing market, economic angst remains well behind war and domestic issues among the public’s chief concerns, according to survey results.

Given an open-ended opportunity to name the major problem facing the U.S., 15 percent volunteered the economy. That was six percentage points more than named it when the AP-Ipsos poll last asked the question in July.

“They talk about a big surge in Iraq; well, there hasn’t been a big surge over here,” said Sadruddin El-Amin, 55, a truck driver in Hanahan, S.C., who named the economy as the top problem. “The job market isn’t getting any better, not for the working class.”

This necessarily poses a problem for the GOP.

Mike Huckabee, to his credit, said:

“You know, a lot of people are going to be watching this debate. They’re going to hear Republicans on this stage talk about how great the economy is. And frankly, when they hear that, they’re going to probably reach for the dial.”

I think that’s true, but I don’t think the GOP top-tier candidates have much of a choice. Bush has already executed what they perceive as the right economic strategy: he lavished the rich with tax breaks.

If Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, and Romney concede that the economy has left millions of Americans behind, they would have to acknowledge some of the shortcomings of Bush’s strategy. If they pretend that the economy is great, just as it is, and they promise to deliver more of the same, the candidates look wildly out of touch.

I’m sure they’ll think of some way to blame this on Hillary Clinton, MoveOn.org, and the editorial page of the New York Times, but I have a hunch it won’t sell well.

I guess Thompson and his buddies’ tax cuts didn’t trickle down to us yet.

What we need is for them to get more tax cuts.

/snark

I hope the Dems highlight exactly how much each presidential contender stands to benefit personally from their policy prescriptions. Put it in actual dollars.

  • This goes back to what Paul Krugman wrote about recently that George Bush is the perfect model of a conservative. All the economic and governmental policies that conservatives always rail about: getting government off the backs of business, letting corporate CEOs run our national economy, cutting taxes for the rich and having private charities become the crux of this nation’s social safety net have been enacted. To admit that these measures have not worked as foretold is to be to the left of Bush and to admit that the conservative philosophy has flaws. Republican presidential candidates have to stick their heads in the sand on economic issues, otherwise their house of cards comes tumbling down.

  • Ron Paul, to his credit, said:

    “Today, this country is in the middle of a recession for a lot of people. Michigan knows about it. Poor people know about it. The middle class knows about it. Wall Street doesn’t know about it. Washington, D.C., doesn’t know about it.”

  • I heard Bill Press this morning agreeing with a guy who wants to give illegals work permits.
    He doesn’t want to prosecute employers of illegals.

    I’d like to give these guys a copy of “The Grapes of Wrath”.
    Substitute “Mexicans” for “Okies” and you might get a clue what all this crap about the “need” for a guest worker program is really all about.

    I’m glad to have these wonderful people become citizens, but let’s see if we can’t lock the doors before we just have 12 million (?) new citizens complaining about the next wave of illegals who can’t unionize, vote, or get police court protection. (Perfect employees!)

    When only citizens can work here, corporate America will demand more citizens and we can TRULY offer the American dream to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free rather than dangle carrots on a stick that are just out of reach. It isn’t racist to want more Mexican American CITIZENS while opposing Mexican American illegals. We aren’t doing these people any favors by locking them out of the privileges of citizenship.

  • I’ll be laid off at the end of the year. Part of me is happy about that, since I hate my job (obviously, since I’m on Carpetbagger Report all day) but finding a new job is not easy. You should see the stack of rejection letters I’ve collected from places I’ve applied to work. Hopefully Dominos Pizza will still need drivers in January. Damn stupid economy! arrrgh.

  • I hate to say this, but if you read the Reuters report, you get the idea Thompson was “crisp” in his debut, throwing around jokes and being a good candidate.

    I don’t know which debate that reporter attended, or if they did, but there you are.

  • That crunching sound you hear is an ideology smashing into reality.

    For years the GOP has cruised on assumptions that tax cutting and laissez faire would lead to an economic utopia, and that jingoists knew better than pointy-headed intellectuals how to deal with the swarthy hordes beyond the borders. The past six years have allowed them a near-perfect laboratory to test these assumptions, and the results have not been pretty.

    Statistics for the domestic economy have been a bit ambiguous (as statistics often are). Official unemployment rates seem basically OK, and the economy as a whole has been growing steadily if not spectacularly. However under the surface you can see the troubles – official unemployment stats probably understate the real situation, and income growth has been restricted almost exclusively to the very top end of the income scale. Compounding the problem is the Republican tendency to fudge evidence for rhetorical advantage rather than looking at it dispassionately.

    The result is a whole political movement in a bind. They’ve been blindsided by the country’s economic weakness, first because it contradicts their utopian expectations for what their policies should have accomplished, and second because they’ve been reflexively hiding from the implications of the evidence that they were wrong. Their ideology gives them nothing to help make sense of where they are, and their whole political culture makes it impossible for them to look beyond ideology. Like the Brezhnev-era politburo, their entire worldview has turned out to be unworkable, but they have no idea how to try anything differently.

  • SUB-ROSA NEWS

    Some of the News
    That may be True

    THOMPSON DENIES POLAND EVER IN SOVIET ORBIT

    In last night’s Republican debate Fred Thompson said that President Gerald Ford would never have permitted the Soviet Union to dominate Poland. “Ford was a tough cold war president” added Mr. Thompson.

    In response to another foreign policy question from moderator Chris Mathews, Mr. Thompson took a strong stand on Cuba, stating “I will never make any trade or visiting concessions with Cuba as long as Fidel Castro is still president of that nation”.

    Noting, in this debate held in Michigan, that he had always favored American cars, Mr. Thompson also vowed never to use a pick up truck from a foreign auto manufacturer.

    homer with fake news from
    http://www.altara.blogspot.com

  • Why should being in touch with the economic concerns of the masses be any different for the Republicans? They’re out of touch on foreign policy, defense, homeland security and every aspect of governance.

    They created a worldview that is oblivious to fact and they’re sticking with it even as it sinks beneath the waves of reality.

  • Pingback: The Right’s Field » GOP Economic Debate Proves GOP Debaters Know Nothing About Economics

  • Only a few of the ultra-rich (Bush/Cheney friends) really care about the tax cuts. They see it as unfair also and wouldn’t mind paying the taxes. After the first couple billion…how much more money do you need to the point of destroying the economy that helped to make you rich. The “American Dream” includes helping others to achieve it once you’ve achieved it. Stop the tax cuts on the ultra wealthy and watch the economy become great again. Our DC insiders stand in their own shadows and then wonder why they can’t see the light.

    Watch the GOP spin their denial of a failing economy while assuring us that what they’ve done is working rather than admit a mistake and fix the damn problem.

  • Former Senator Fred Thompson is the only candidate that gets it. He makes decisions based on principles. Principles don’t change. You have to stand for something and not change who you are based on the polls. That is what Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have done and all of the Democrats do it. Give me a leader that will stand by his principles anyday versus someone that stands for everything.

    I know many Republicans and conservatives that will stay home if Rudy Giuliani is the candidate. He does not represent our values as conservatives, and never will. Mitt Romney is a Republican-in-name-only (RINO ) that simply has everything else and nothing to do. “I guess I’ll just try to buy the presidency”. The White House isn’t for sale! Conservatives will simply stay home and the Democrats will pick up additional seats in the House and probably get the 60 seats in the Senate they need to completely destroy our Country. Nice picture huh?

    However, I think Fred can bring America back together, if that’s even possible. America needs a rebirth of patriotism and honor. Republicans also need a rebirth. President Reagan was our last rebirth and he can never be duplicated. Fred Thompson will bring his own down-to-earth common sense to this country.. A little of the good old days of faith, federalism and family would do well for this country. If a conservative runs as a conservative, he will win!

    Think of it this way: Eight years of another Clinton White House? Now if that is not a sufficient enough reason to pull together as a nation, and fight this socialist liberal takeover of our government, what is?

    Folks, we are in for the fight of our lives, just as our young men and women are fighting for our freedoms in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must fight for our nation right here and now! I truly believe Fred Thompson is the one man who can pull this nation back together! Rudy Giuliani will just tear us apart.

    Contribute to Fred Thompson: https://www.fred08.com/contribute.aspx?RefererID=c637caaa-315c-4b4c-9967-08d864cd0791

  • And frankly, when they hear that, they’re going to probably reach for the dial.

    Dial? Since when do TVs have dials any more? The word you want is remote, jackass.

  • There are millions of job openings here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, from minimum wage to high six-figures. I can show you millions of job openings in other cities and states all over the U.S.A. However, the left will never be happy with the economy as long as a republican (especially the hated George W. Bush) is in the White House. We all remember the ceaseless reports about homelessness all during the Reagan and Bush41 administrations, which “miraculously” stopped the minute a democrat (Bill Clinton) took office! The left-leaning media doesn’t have a monopoly on providing news anymore, so this scam isn’t working as well as it used to…

  • Alan***Thompson is a ignorant phoney. His campaign is fear and smear only. He doesn’t know the first thing about economic policy or foreign policy…has no experience with either and does only what he is instructed to do. The man is a proven liar and hardly honorable and his patriotism is war profiteering. If you are this easily fooled by this guy then you obviously have not even bothered to look at the other candidates…at all. It’s laughable that you would link a donation site here for Thompson..here where readers are far above average in their political perceptions.
    Don’t you know about Thompson’s “red truck” hypocrisy where he drives it to a political rally and then pulls away in it to park it a few miles down the road and then get into his Limo. He was a lobbyist for most of his career…a sale out. You are blind to your own candidate. What the hell were you thinking to post such bull here. Best go back and reevaluate your perceptions ’cause it sounds like you have a heart but are really just misinformed. You can’t turn Thompson into something he’s not..and never will be, because his principles have always been for sale…every since his secret alliance with Nixon over his non-existent principles.

  • ***btw Alan*** Most of us who aren’t republicans think Reagan was the worst president we’ve had in the modern age. He destroyed the middle class and started us down the economic road to the conditions we find ourselves in now. Regan set out to destroy our government by getting rid of it except whatever was necessary to protect the wealthy. Rather than make our government more efficient or streamline it to make it work, he set about getting rid of it. You don’t know a damn thing about the Iran-contra affair do you? Your comment merely show how little you do know, how shallow your observations are. God boy, go back and learn something because you are only embarrassing yourself.

    Reagan’s answer to a Katrina victim…”I’m from the government and I’m here to help?…No, it was fuck you…I got mine and you ain’t gettin’ a dime of it. These were Reagan principles…lie, buy slave labor, and screw the have-nots, screw the infrastructure of the US. Principles my ass…they only “claim” to have them.

  • “There are millions of job openings here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, from minimum wage to high six-figures.”

    Wow, that’s amazing, especially when one considers that the total population of DFW is just over 6 million.

    “..the left will never be happy with the economy as long as a republican (especially the hated George W. Bush) is in the White House.”

    Yes, “the left”, and a big chunk of the American people.

    ” We all remember the ceaseless reports about homelessness all during the Reagan and Bush41 administrations, which “miraculously” stopped the minute a democrat (Bill Clinton) took office!”

    I don’t remember homelessness as ever being reported as stopping under Clinton, but it did decrease over his 8 years, from 15% in 1993 to 11% in 2000.

    Apparently, 1 minute = 8 years in the conservative mind.

  • I thought Ron Paul did well in the debate from the constitutioalist point of view. Fred Thompson also did well and started going in depth and expanding on others answers. I didn’t like Rudy and Mitt trying to blow a bumch of smoke up everyones butts and being cutesey. Rudy was correct on the Romney consulting attorneys answer. However, Rudy is no longer a contender.
    Giuliani is about to become un-electable. Ever heard of Bernard Kerik?
    Bernard Kerik’s the former police commissioner of NYC.
    Federal prosecutors expect to file charges against the former police commissioner that will include allegations of bribery, tax fraud and obstruction of justice.
    Rudy’s problem?
    Giuliani’s former chief investigator briefed the mayor on Kerik’s alleged organized crime connections before Giuliani named Kerik police commissioner.
    Mr. Giuliani, testifyed last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik and said he had no memory of the briefing.
    Starts to sound like the Clinton Gang doesn’t it?
    What we have here is a presidential candidate who is in bed with organized crime.
    In addition NARAL a pro-abortion activist group is just short of endorsing Rudy. Rudy’s campaign is feverishly negotiating to halt the endorsment.
    Good Night Rudy!

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