As the government shutdown neared its end, an NBC/Esquire poll
appeared trying to promote the idea of “New American Center.” Salon’s
own Alex Pareene
rather mercilessly, for various good reasons, not least of which was
how the whole enterprise came off: “It seems like marketing for NBC and
Esquire — we represent the sensible (and probably affluent) center!
Don’t be scared of our political content, advertisers!” Pareene wrote.
But there was more: “[I]t is clearly very psychically important to the
elite political media that a reasonable center exist. A common-sense,
centrist middle is an essential, foundational myth of the nonpartisan
press.
in 1996, today’s elite media also thrives on superficial coverage of
controversy, which makes it complicit in generating the very extremism
it simultaneous deplores, condemns and needs to hold at bay in order to
legitimate itself.
With such a profoundly self-contradictory
practice, it should not surprise us that the poll was even more
misleading than Pareene described. Polarization in some sense is real —
and yet also partial, misleading and embedded in consensus as well. Tea
Partyers ranting “Keep the government’s hands off my Medicare!” may seem
comical — but they also show just how broad a true consensus can be.
In fact, they reflect two central (but routinely ignored) facts of
American public opinion that have remained remarkably stable since the
1960s, despite all that’s changed since then:
These two facts are both in full force
with respect to the ongoing post-shutdown budget battle. In fact, a
sophisticated poll covering 31 budget items as well as revenue sources
conducted around the 2010 elections found that, even then, Republican,
Democratic and independent voters all agreed on much higher taxes and
much deeper defense cuts as the most striking elements of how the budget
should be crafted. But before we examine that poll, we need to put
these two key facts into long-term context.
The
first clear picture of this situation came from two pioneers of public
opinion research, Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril, in their 1967 book,
“The Political Beliefs of Americans,”
based on surveys conducted in 1964. Their most striking finding was
profoundly paradoxical: While half the population qualified as
ideological conservatives, based on questions about government
interference and individual initiative, two-thirds of the population
were operationally liberal, supporting an activist federal government
when asked about specific programs or responsibilities — stable or
increased federal government spending on education, housing and urban
renewal, adoption of Johnson’s Medicare proposal, and government
responsibility to fight poverty.
In short, the American people
were in some sense schizoid — opposed to big government in principle,
but even more supportive of it in practice. Most strikingly, almost
one-quarter of the population — 23 percent — were both ideological
conservatives and operational liberals, and this figure skyrocketed to
46 percent in the Deep South states that Goldwater carried in the 1964
election.
In the final section of the final chapter of the book,
titled “The Need for a Restatement of American Ideology,” Free and
Cantril wrote:
The paradox of a large majority of
Americans qualifying as operational liberals while at the same time a
majority hold to a conservative ideology has been repeatedly emphasized
in this study. We have described this state of affairs as mildly
schizoid, with people believing in one set of principles abstractly
while acting according to another set of principles in their political
behavior. But the principles according to which the majority of
Americans actually behave politically have not yet been adequately
formulated in modern terms …
There is little doubt that the time
has come for a restatement of American ideology to bring it in line with
what the great majority of people want and approve. Such a statement,
with the right symbols incorporated, would focus people’s wants, hopes,
and beliefs, and provide a guide and platform to enable the American
people to implement their political desires in a more intelligent,
direct, and consistent manner.
Of course, such a
restatement never happened. To the contrary, the white backlash to
advancing civil rights provided a framework for sharply increased
attacks on “big government,” which liberals were increasingly reluctant
to defend unreservedly. And yet, despite the far more strident
conservative tone of political discourse since then, support for
government spending has varied somewhat cyclically since then, but only
within a relatively narrow range, as recorded by the gold standard of
public opinion research, the
General Social Survey [data archives
here].
The
GSS asks about more than two dozen specific problems or program areas,
asking if the amount we’re spending is “too little,” “too much” or
“about right.” Not only do most Americans think we’re spending too
little in almost every area — most conservatives also think the same.
Indeed — hold onto your hats — even most conservative Republicans feel
that way as well.
Take Social Security and Medicare, for example:
two top “entitlements” that Republicans insist must be cut
significantly, and that Obama has repeatedly indicated he would cut … if
Republicans would agree to raise revenues as well. Progressives long
have argued that these programs need more revenues, not less spending,
so it’s not surprising that liberals surveyed by the GSS think we’re
spending too little on such programs. Combining GSS data from 2000 to
2012, and asking about Social Security and spending on “improving and
protecting the nation’s health” (GSS’s closest match with Medicare),
liberal Democrats thought we were spending “too little” rather than “too
much” on one or both by a margin of 87.1 percent to 2.4 percent — a
ratio of over 36-to-1. But all other groups of Americans held the same
view, even conservative Republicans — just not by the same overwhelming
amount. They “only” thought we were spending “too little” rather than
“too much” by a margin of 59.2 percent to 13.1 percent— a ratio of
4.5-to-1. With figures like that — all well to the left of Democrats in
D.C. — it’s no wonder that conservatives in Congress always talk about
“saving” Social Security and Medicare, and forever try to get Democrats
to take the lead in proposing actual cuts.
One more thing: If you
look at how much liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans agree
with one another — regardless of the positions they take — you come up
with figures for a cross-ideological consensus. It’s the lower of the
two percentages for each position taken. The conventional narrative has
liberals and conservatives always, consistently taking opposite
positions, but this example clearly shows that’s not the case. If the
conventional narrative were true, the lower percentage for each position
would be zero. Instead, it comes to a margin of 59.2 percent to 2.4
percent, for a ratio of 24.7-to-1.
Of course objections can be
raised to these results. For one thing, people are reminded that
spending costs money, but they are not being asked to directly weigh
spending more money to paying more in taxes. When people are asked if
they want more government and higher taxes, or the opposite, results
tend to be more conservative. But there’s also evidence that people are
generally more willing to pay for government programs the more
specifically they are identified — even when they’re asked to consider
the costs. Even welfare, which is very unpopular in general, gains
substantial support when people are asked specific questions about
specific people in specific situations. (In a one-time GSS supplement in
1986, 98 percent of all respondents indicated that welfare recipients
should get more money than they actually receive — author’s analysis of
data in
“The Deserving Poor,” by Jeffrey A. Will.) In short — it’s complicated.
Which
is why it’s best to take more than one approach. This brings us to the
budget-crafting poll I mentioned above—courtesy of researchers at the
Program for Public Consultation, a joint program of the Center on Policy
Attitudes, and the School of Public Policy at the University of
Maryland. In early 2011, PPC released the results of two waves of
“deliberative” polling bracketing the 2010 midterms, which swept a wave
of Tea Party Republicans into Congress, who in turn pushed for sharp
cuts in domestic spending with no tax increases as a matter of
principle. They presented their results in two reports, “
How the American Public Would Deal With the Budget Deficit” in February 2011, and “
Competing Budget Priorities: The Public, the House, the White House” the next month.
As
PPC noted in the second report, there is a decided lack of clarity from
standard polling about what the public wants: “When the public is asked
about the budget most people express their displeasure with the idea of
cutting spending in most areas, their displeasure with the idea of
raising taxes, as well their belief that it would be desirable to
balance the budget. This creates the impression that the public is
simply a mass of contradictory feelings.” To counter this, PPC created a
simplified budget process, meant to mimic the deliberative budget
process, particularly with its consideration of tradeoffs.
The
results of the process were extremely detailed, particularly compared to
what pollsters normally produce. But the big picture was strikingly
clear. Massive cuts to defense on the spending side, massive tax hikes
on the revenue side — both positions well to the left of the Obama
administration, as well as Democratic leaders in Congress. More
specifically, on the spending side, the public favored an average net
reduction of $135.3 billion for general defense spending ($109.4
billion), intelligence ($13.1 billion) and military operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq ($12.8 billion), compared to increases proposed by
both President Obama and the GOP-dominated House. This represented just
over 92 percent of net spending cuts. When you add in cuts to military
aid and strategic economic aid to U.S. allies, the total cuts involving
what the pollsters described as “spending on American international
power” came to 96 percent of the total — $139.4 billion. Yet, the public
also supported modest increases in several liberal priority areas: job
training, education, energy conservation and renewable energy, and
pollution control. Their average net reduction of all spending — $146
billion — was far more than either the president or the GOP House
proposed.
On the revenue side, the public increased taxes by an
average of $292 billion—roughly triple the amount proposed by President
Obama. Majorities increased taxes on incomes over $100,000 by 5 percent
or more, and by 10 percent or more for incomes over $500,000. Majorities
also increased corporate taxes and other excise taxes. Overwhelming
majorities also favored raising estate taxes: 77 percent favored
reverting at least to the 2009 levels, with estates over $3.5 million
taxed at a 45 percent rate. These positions are generally so far left,
they don’t even appear on the spectrum of discussion in Washington.
The
researchers also found broad agreement across party lines. Their first
report noted, “Among a total of 31 areas, on average Republicans,
Democrats and independents agreed on 22 areas — that is, all three
groups agreed on whether to cut, increase or maintain funding. In 9
other areas there was dissensus.” That’s not to say there weren’t
differences. Republicans cut much less from defense — $55.6 billion for
core defense (versus $109.4 billion) — and much less overall — $100.7
billion (versus $146 billion) — than Americans as a whole. But even so,
the position of Republican respondents overall was still dramatically to
the left of the political conservation in Washington.
In fact, PPC noted:
It
is striking that no group — Republican, Democrat, or independents — on
average acted in ways that fit their respective media stereotypes. It
might be assumed that Republicans would cut the most; Democrats would
cut the least or even increase spending; and that independents would be
in between. But on the contrary:
- Republicans cut spending the least, though still considerably ($100.7 billion, or 7.4%)
- Democrats cut spending more than Republicans ($157.3 billion, or 11.6%)
- Independents cut spending substantially more than either Republicans or Democrats ($195.5 billion or 14.4%).
Thus,
everything the media and Washington’s conventional wisdom tells you
about the will of the voters is wrong. But don’t forget the Tea Party!
They, too, did not respond as expected. Sure, they were more
conservative than Republicans overall, but they still come across as
wild-eyed socialists compared to their D.C. representatives:
Those
who described themselves as “very sympathetic” to the Tea Party (14% of
the full sample), as would be expected, raised taxes and revenues less
than Republicans in general, and less than Democrats and independents.
Even so, on average, Tea Party sympathizers found a quite substantial
$188.2 billion in additional revenues to reduce the deficit ($105.2
billion in individual income taxes).
Tea Partyers
raising taxes? By more than President Obama? Welcome to the strangest
world of all: Welcome to reality. Think I’m kidding? Then consider the
next way that PPC chose to look at its data — a comparison of blue and
red districts. Remember, these districts have become dramatically safer
for partisans than in years past — a fact that’s help push House
Republicans ever further to the right, because fear of a primary
challenge from the right is greater than fear of losing in the general
election. And yet, PPC found surprising little difference between red
and blue districts as a whole:
Overall, red districts
and blue districts were very similar in the ways that they increased
revenues…. What is surprising is that red districts on average increased
revenues slightly more than did blue districts on average.
On
average, red districts increased revenues by $295.5 billion, of which
$155.9 billion came from increases to individual income taxes. Blue
districts increased revenues by $286.4 billion, of which $153.6 billion
came from individual income taxes. In red districts, more respondents
increased effective tax rates on incomes over $500,000, as well as some
other taxes.
The reason for this counterintuitive
result, PPC notes, is the greater presence of independents in red
districts (25 percent vs. 19 percent in blue districts). Because they
favored higher taxes and deeper spending cuts, they tipped the balance
to make red districts remarkably similar to blue districts. The
differences were almost as modest on the spending side:
On
average, red districts made spending cuts totaling $140.6 billion,
while blue districts made cuts totaling $153.4 billion—a difference of
$12.8 billion.
The rational for the House of
Representatives is that it is “closer to the people,” and this is what
Tea Party political representatives have repeatedly claimed as well, as
they’ve fought to push the political spectrum sharply to the right.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, nothing could be further from the
truth. The main reasons are obvious: First, the independents who shift
the balance so decisively do not vote in GOP primaries, so their voices
simply don’t count. This is the point of the PPC’s red district/blue
district analysis. Second, and even more fundamentally, nobody ever asks
the public what they want in ways that allow them to articulate a
coherent vision. This is the point of PPC’s entire project, and their
budget project in particular.
It should be pointed out that
cutting the budget deficit much more than Democrats or Republicans does
not make the public more left-wing in one very crucial respect: Cutting
the deficit amounts to austerity economics, the opposite of the
Keynesian approach, which keeps deficits high when the economy is
struggling, letting public-spending demand take up the slack of missing
private sector demand, in order to hasten recovery. Classic Keynesian
policy calls for cutting back deficits only after economic recovery is
well established — a point we are still far from reaching roughly three
years after PPC’s surveys were conducted.
Yet, this doesn’t
necessarily mean the public actually believes in austerity economics in
the way that these figures might suggest, for at least three main
reasons. First, as Free and Cantril’s research showed, Americans have
always believed in austerity economics at a symbolic, ideological
level. This is what their findings about American’s ideological
conservativism were all about. But this finding — based on surverys in
1964 — did not prevent LBJ from winning a landslide victory over Barry
Goldwater, and thus cannot be taken seriously as a policy prescription.
That’s what their findings of operational liberalism are all about.
Second, there’s the
“the Beltway deficit feedback loop”
described by Washington Post Plum Line blogger Greg Sargent back in
April 2011 — the cumulative impact on public opinion of the Beltway
deficit-cutting obsession eventually stifling the public’s primary
concern over jobs. Thus, the public that PPC was polling around the
2010 midterms was a public repeatedly primed to cut deficits by Beltward
Democrats as well as Republicans.
Third, this priming was
reinforced by the entire structure of the budget exercise as designed by
PPC. There was nothing in PPC’s approach designed to ask if people
preferred to prioritize putting people back to work before reducing the
budget deficit, or to provide accurate information about the
macroeconomics involved. This is not to say that PPC is ignorant of
this concern.
Another PPC survey
conducted in roughly the same time frame, just after the 2010 midterms
found widespread misinformation throughout the elctorate, with some of
the most prominent examples having clear impact on people’s view of the
economy and economic policy. This includes underming their understanding
of how effective economic stimulus has been. But that’s a topic for a
whole other article.
We’ve just been through a lot of facts and
figures, but the bottom line boils down to this, an echo of what Free
and Cantil discovered back in 1967: The real polarization in American
politics is a split between symbolic conservative intuitions on the one
hand, and pragmatic liberal facts on the other. The more that confusion
and unconfirmed, even unconscious biases abound, the more that
conservative “common sense” carries the day. The more informed that
people become, the closer they are to the problems that need solving,
the more liberal they become — no matter what they call themselves,
liberal, conservative, Tea Party or whatever.
Finally, it matters
just as little whether pollsters label them cozy centrists or wild
extremists. Sober facts bring us together. Unchecked fantasies drive us
apart. This should be our focus as we move toward trying to fashion a
way forward in the budget talks ahead. We need facts now, more than
ever, to get our country — and our government — working again.
, the highest in history.
