State of the Union

Public's View of Economy Takes Fast Turn Downward

By Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen

The public's ratings of the national economy continue to sour, with assessments deteriorating faster than at any point in Washington Post-ABC News polling. Views on the Iraq war have also turned more negative, with six in 10 now rejecting the notion that the United States needs to win there to effectively battle terrorism.

The economy and the Iraq war are the top two issues on voters' minds, according to the new Post-ABC poll, and worsening opinions of both may dampen GOP hopes for the November elections.

Nine in 10 Americans now give the economy a negative rating, with a majority saying it is in "poor" shape, the most to say so in more than 15 years. And the sense that things are bad has spread swiftly. The percentage who hold a negative view of the economy is up 33 points over the past year, and the percentage who rate the economy "poor" has increased 13 points in the past two months. That is the quickest 60-day decline since The Post and ABC started asking the question, in 1985.

Views of the Iraq war have dipped as well. Now, more than six in 10 say that the conflict is not integral to the success of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. That is the most people to reject what is one of the Bush administration's central contentions and a core part of presumed GOP presidential nominee John McCain's stand on the issue.

And for the first time since President Bush ordered additional troops to Iraq early last year, the number of Americans saying the United States is not making significant progress toward restoring civil order there has risen. Negative views of the war had eased steadily from late 2006 through early March of this year, but 57 percent in the new poll said efforts in Iraq have stalled, up six points.

Moreover, while Bush remains committed to keeping more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq through the rest of his presidency, 56 percent of Americans say the United States should withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties. This has been the majority view since January 2007.

On several measures, the poll finds Republicans inching away from support for the war. Among them, a sense that progress in Iraq has stalled has increased 13 points from early March, and the percentages who prefer withdrawing troops over risking more casualties (30 percent) and who think that the battle against terrorism can be a success without victory in Iraq (39 percent) are each at new highs.

The percentages of Democrats and independents advocating withdrawal and seeing Iraq as distinct from the U.S. terrorism fight are also at or near high marks. And three-quarters of Democrats and nearly six in 10 independents do not see significant progress in Iraq.

The survey was conducted April 10 through 13, after congressional testimony about the war by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.

Partisan views color public opinion about the nation's economy, as well as those about Iraq.

Two-thirds of Democrats call the economy downright "poor," as do a majority of independents. But while a wide majority of Republicans rate the economy negatively, only about three in 10 describe conditions as that dire, and most have a positive take on the future. Most Democrats and independents, however, hold pessimistic views about the next 12 months.

Economic ratings are flagging across partisan lines, and overall optimism is at a new low among all Americans: Nearly six in 10 said they feel pessimistic about the economy for the coming year, a seven-point increase since early February. And those who think the situation is already in poor shape do not have high hopes for recovery anytime soon; nearly three-quarters of them have a negative view about the next 12 months.

Focusing on their own finances, Americans are generally upbeat, but here, too, opinions have declined somewhat over the past few months. Two-thirds are optimistic about their family's financial situation for the coming year, down seven points since December.

One force behind declining assessments of the economy is the soaring cost of gasoline. With retail prices averaging $3.39 per gallon (a record high, according to the Energy Department), two-thirds of those polled said recent price increases have been a hardship, including about four in 10 who called the cost of filling their tanks a "serious" burden. Among those with annual family incomes under $50,000, 52 percent said gas prices cause serious hardship, double the number of those from higher-income families to say so.

The government's plan to alleviate some of the economic stress -- through economic stimulus rebates and new tax breaks for businesses -- is viewed even more skeptically than it was in early February. Nearly eight in 10 now think the package will not be enough to avert or soften a recession. Republicans in particular have soured on the idea: 68 percent said it will fail to abate the slowdown, an increase of 21 points since February.

This poll was conducted among a random national sample of 1,197 adults. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points

Thanks to the Bush Adminstration!

What Could You Do with $3 Trillion?

Check out the website: http://3trillion.org/

I bought (and still had over $500 Billion left):
Kyoto Protocol Worldwide Compliance
1 purchased for $400,000,000,000.00 each
Switch to Solar
1 purchased for $420,000,000,000.00 each
End hunger and poverty related diseases
1 purchased for $195,000,000,000.00 each
Fight AIDS in Developing Nations
1 purchased for $15,000,000,000.00 each
Search for a Cure to Cancer
1 purchased for $6,000,000,000.00 each
Control Malaria
1 purchased for $2,000,000,000.00 each
Universal Preschool
1 purchased for $35,000,000,000.00 each
Desalination Plants
1 purchased for $300,000,000.00 each
New National Power Grid
2 purchased for $100,000,000.00 each
No Kill Animal Shelters World Wide
1 purchased for $7,000,000,000.00 each
Universal Health Care for Every American (300 million of us)
1 purchased for $920,100,000,000.00 each
Sustainable Agriculture Education, Worldwide
1 purchased for $200,000,000.00 each
Achieve Universal Literacy
1 purchased for $5,000,000,000.00 each
100 New Libraries
2 purchased for $5,000,000,000.00 each
Limit Congressional Terms to 2
1 purchased for $16,000,000,000.00 each
Achieve the Millennium Development Goals
1 purchased for $60,000,000,000.00 each
prosecute Bush & Cheney for war crimes
1 purchased for $50,000,000.00 each
Increase sustainable Organic Produce in the US
1 purchased for $10,000,000,000.00 each
Plant 1,000,000 trees
1 purchased for $10,000,000.00 each
Everglades Restoration
1 purchased for $20,000,000,000.00 each
K-12 Arts and music education
1 purchased for $6,000,000,000.00 each
finish repairing the damage done by Katrina
1 purchased for $200,000,000,000.00 each
Housing for America's homeless
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New Clothing, Shoes, Coats, and School Supplies for Ten Million Children
1 purchased for $10,000,000,000.00 each
National Park Service Annual Budget
1 purchased for $2,256,000,000.00 each

New Rules 4/11/08

Hillary Hypocrisy

Norma Rae Clinton: Hillary's Middle Class Hypocrisy by Seth Grahame-Smith

And so her suicide campaign continues.

Last Sunday, Barack Obama was speaking at a fundraiser when he said that some small town voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Hillary pounced on the remarks, calling them "elitist" and "out of touch." Now, we'll get to those remarks in a second. But first we need to address the epic hypocrisy of Hillary Rodham Clinton calling another human being "out of touch" with middle class Americans. I'd like to start by sharing an observation and a quote with you:

Observation: Hillary Clinton is a fantastically wealthy, union-busting, condescending corporate board member with a privileged background who's trying to convince you that she's more "in touch" than a guy whose relatives live in huts.

Second, a quote:

"You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession."

That was Hillary during her husband's 1992 campaign.

Here's what we can infer from those comments: 1) Hillary thinks homemaking is beneath her. 2) Hillary thinks that a woman who doesn't pursue a profession is wasting her life. 3) Hillary hates working class families. OK, maybe "hate" is too strong -- but she's certainly shown a willingness to work against them.

Take for instance her days as a union-busting board member for Wal-Mart, or her partnership in the notoriously anti-union Rose Law Firm. What can we infer from those associations? That Hillary Clinton hates union workers, naturally. Again, maybe "hate" isn't the right word. But she's certainly shown a willingness to suppress and litigate against them.

And now the pant-suited wonder is tossing back shots with the working folks of Indiana, making believe she's a gun-toting huntress -- as if we'd forget that she's been one of the most staunchly anti-gun politicians in Washington since the 1990s. Isn't it adorable? She's pretending to be one of the little people! The same little people she's belittled and screwed over in the past -- whether it was through NAFTA, Wal-Mart, or her own elitist, out-of-touch comments.

She's trying to paint Obama as aloof. Meanwhile she's swilling Pabst and bragging about all the bucks she's bagged in carefully-staged photo ops. Could there be anything more condescending? Does she really think we're stupid enough to believe that her fingernails have ever known the scourge of dirt? What's next, a quail hunt with John Kerry? The truth is, the closest Hillary Clinton's ever come to a dead buck is one of Huma Abedin's deerskin handbags.

Now, onto Obama's remarks. Were they stupid? Absolutely. He screwed up. He sounded less like the kid who was raised by his grandparents, and more like the editor of The Harvard Law Review. But do those stupid remarks reflect his values and history? I don't believe so. As a matter of fact, unlike Hillary, Obama actually has experience living as a working class American. Unlike Hillary (who grew up safely ensconced in Chicago's upscale Park Ridge), Obama got his fingernails dirty trying to better the lives of the working poor in inner-city Chicago.

And by the way, very few people are talking about the most important part of this story: that Obama was right (even though he made his point arrogantly). The people of Pennsylvania -- just like those of Ohio, and Michigan, and Indiana, and the rest of the United States -- are angry about seeing their jobs go overseas, their wages stagnate, and their retirement funds dwindle. Many of them turn to their faith to get through hard times, and rightly so. The question is, who's the best person to address their needs -- the guy who grew up middle class, or the woman whose efforts to appear middle class begin and end in a bar?

In the past week, we've seen Bill Clinton brazenly lie to cover up Hillary's brazen lies. We've seen her pander to the working class by painting herself as a "praise God, pass the ammunition" alcoholic. We've seen that there isn't a staged event she considers too insulting to our intelligence, or a story she wouldn't needlessly embellish to win our votes. She's become so mind-numbingly phony -- so completely transparent, that anyone -- even a stupid little housewife (her assessment, not mine) can see it plain as a duck in a rifle scope.

Don't be fooled, working people of Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and North Carolina. Don't be duped into eating out of Hillary's $109M hands the way the media is bound to do all week. Don't forget that while Obama may suck at bowling, at least he's no suck up. And above all, don't forget what Hillary Rodham Clinton really is:

A blueblood in blue-collared clothing.

6 Months at a Time

New Rules 4/4/08