Another trip to Realityland

From Pew Research:

[T]he public is not expressing a particular sense of urgency over the pending March 1 sequester deadline. With little more than a week to go, barely a quarter have heard a lot about the scheduled cuts, while about as many have heard nothing at all.

Meanwhile, because partisans have focused on their heated partisan disputes and the media have focused on the partisans' engagement of heated partisan disputes, President Obama's singularly emphatic message of fiscal balance has pretty much drifted out of public sight:

When those who favor a balanced approach to reducing the deficit are asked if the focus should mostly be on spending cuts or tax increases, they overwhelmingly say spending cuts. Overall, 73% say efforts by the president and Congress to reduce the deficit should be only or mostly focused on spending cuts [italics mine].

That's an alarming statistic. It powerfully suggests that Obama's calm arguments for reasonable compromise are losing (or have lost) to the hysterical eructations of the two-ring partisan circus--which both plays into Republicans' hands and manifests itself in the spending-rather-than-new-revenue stat.   

All of which means the heated partisans could be amusing us into another recession, or something damn close to it.

Comments

[BobH]

Sequester. It will be interesting just how much fat there really is in the federal budget. A lot, no doubt.

But I do not doubt for a minute the capacity of the professional civil service (that was us!) to survive an 8-9-10% budget cut. Doomsayers notwithstanding.
They will just re-program the money across budget line items. It will be a judicious exercise in fund accounting.

Procurement times will lengthen. Payments will be delayed. Hiring will slow, or stop. Equipment will not be repaired. Official travel will be curtailed. "No Year" funds will be found and tapped! But, doom and gloom may not be in order here.

Govt. Contractors will take a hit. Everyone will gain a new appreciation of the role of the Federal Government in the economy.

[priscianus jr]

Ummm, this just in:

"According to a new USA Today/Pew Research poll, 49% those surveyed support the president’s short term delay of the sequester. Forty percent think the spending cuts should be allowed to go into effect. The Republican argument that new tax revenue should not be a part of further deficit reduction is being soundly rejected. Seventy six percent of those surveyed believe that the president and congress should focus on lowering the deficit through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. Only 19% agree with the Republican approach of spending cuts alone."
http://www.politicususa.com/obama-routs-republicans-sequester-56-gop-support-balanced-approach.html