American People To Congress: Focus On Jobs

If you listen to the Tea Party’s rhetoric,  the American people are mad as hell about the deficit and are not going to take it any more.  The problem is that it’s not the case.

According to a CBS News poll of  1,137 adults,  only 4 percent of respondents thought that the new Congress should make the budget deficit a priority and 2 percent wanted taxes to be on the top of the agenda when it reconvenes in January.   Only 14 percent wanted Congress to focus on health care, another key rallying point of Tea Partiers.   The majority of people — 56 percent — thought that jobs should be Congress’s top priority.   Shocking, that last statistic is not.  What is surprising, though, is that despite months of teeth gashing and chest-thumping about the deficit, how few people care.

To be sure, most people realize that the $1 trillion plus deficit is a bad thing.  Some may realize that quite a bit of that debt is in the hands of the Chinese.  A few may even feel that government wastes a lot of tax dollars, which is true, though they probably would  not be able to name any specifics.  They shouldn’t feel too bad since most politicians can’t either.  What people who follow economics and politics closely forget is that they are a minority.  Most Americans would sooner gauge their eyes out than watch a politician babble on about the debt crisis.

What the poll results highlight is that the public focuses on what they understand.   Most everyone has a job.   All they have to do is open their eyes and they will notice that many of their friends and neighbors are out of work. For sale signs dot their neighborhoods and new development sit half-finished waiting for banks to lend cash-strapped developers funds.  All of this can be seen with the naked eye.  The problem comes when someone has to explain why these things are happening. That’s when politics comes into play.

For instance, conservatives are arguing that the Bush Tax Cuts must be extended to jump-start the economy.  Liberals and a few renegade Republicans argue such as David Stockman argue that the U.S.  can’t afford the additional burden the cuts will put on the deficit.   Conservatives also claim that the federal bailouts were a waste of taxpayers’ money though economists and former President George W. Bush, who ordered them, say they were needed.

Having discussions like the one mentioned above probably would either bore or confuse most Americans.   Many don’t even get taught the basics of economics.  A survey by the Council for Economic Education found that in 2009 21 states  require students to take an economics course to graduate high school, , up from 17 in 2007.  Unfortunately,  19 states required the testing of student knowledge in economics,  four fewer than in 2007.

Until more Americans understand the “dismal science”, politicians will lead the around by the noose telling them what they want to hear.  That’s one sure  way to make certain that nothing gets done.

–Jonathan Berr