A new Bloomberg poll reveals the weakness of President Obama’s and the Democrats’ position on the debt ceiling fight. The president has demanded a “clean” debt ceiling hike, uncoupled with any spending cuts. That’s not where most of the American people say they are, though.
Americans by a 2-to-1 ratio disagree with President Barack Obama’s contention that Congress should raise the U.S. debt limit without conditions.
Instead, 61 percent say that it’s “right to require spending cuts when the debt ceiling is raised even if it risks default,” because Congress lacks spending discipline, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted Sept. 20-23.
That sentiment is shared by almost three-quarters of Republicans, two-thirds of independents, and a plurality of Democrats. Just 28 percent of respondents backed Obama’s call for a clean bill that has no add-on provisions.
On Barack Obama’s watch, the US debt ceiling has risen time after time, from $12.1 trillion in September 2009 to $16.7 trillion now. He and Sen. Harry Reid have repeatedly put the country through wars over spending and the debt ceiling by refusing to live under a budget, as every president before them has done. Obama’s is a paycheck-to-paycheck government.
Neither Obama nor the Democrats will care about this poll, though. The 28% who agree with Obama on the “clean” debt ceiling hike are his base, and they’re the only Americans whose opinion matters to him. The rest of us can pound sand as far as he is concerned. And surely some of those who say they want spending cuts don’t actually, in their heart of hearts, want spending cuts. If they did, they would never cast another vote for a Democrat.
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