Cartoon of the day 2011-07-18

Why most polls suck

Any one who reads me, or even hangs around me for any length of time, will find out I’m not a big fan of polls.

There’s just too many things that can tilt a poll one way or another.

Oh, you want me to name some? Gladly. Size of the sample, who’s in the sample, how the question is worded, the order of the choices, if my wife mouthed off to me this morning, if I woke up with a headache, if I’m getting ready to go out, ideological leaning of the one taking the poll, You want me to go on?

This is not to say there’s no value in polls. For example, I will use polling results in responding to liberals about some issue they are big on. I do this because liberals love polls.

For example, only 27% Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstance, in other words like it is now.

But I’m just playing with them.

Long prelude to get to this:

A new Gallup Poll finds that just 26% of GOP voters think a deal to lift the debt ceiling should consist entirely of spending cuts.

The vast majority of Republicans believe that at least some tax revenue increases are necessary, which is contrary to the current position of the Republican congressional leadership.

Nate Silver: “The Republicans in the House of Representatives are extremely conservative on fiscal matters and are significantly out of step with the public as a whole.” [emphasis mine]

via Most GOP Voters See Need for Revenue Increases.

I’m like, “Whoa. Really?”

So I looked up the poll. Here’s the table:

This is one of those (frankly useless) polls that both sides can get something from. I guess pollsters do this so no one will get mad at them.

Because what Mr. Goddard wrote is correct. Because tax increases are included in every choice but one.

Clever, eh? I love how they did that!

And Republicans can say, “Half of the American people want the deficit to be reduced by mostly spending cuts.”

See how easy that is?

The more choices there are, the better chance to find a majority that favors your point of view.

But sometimes it’s hard to tell anything from a poll. In that same Gallop poll (3rd question), 51% of Americans are concerned the government would raise the debt ceiling without cutting spending. And (4th question) 46% trust Republican leaders rather than Obama (43%) to handle the issues concerning the budget and debt ceiling.

And everyone knows that web polls are even more useless, right? Like this one. I wouldn’t mind voting but they don’t have a choice that matches mine.

Related articles

• Gallup Poll: Public Overwhelmingly Prefers Spending Cuts to Tax Increases (themoderatevoice.com)
• Poll: Tax changes unpopular solution to debt (politico.com)

The McConnell Plan

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., offered a new plan to allow the president to demand up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority by the summer of next year in three separate submissions.

via McConnell: Give Obama New Powers on Debt Limit.

You can find the details here.

Basically it

allows the president to demand up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority by the summer of next year in three separate submissions.

House and Senate could disallow these requests in 15 days and the president could veto any “disallowals.”

The Heritage Foundation argues against it. The Wall Street Journal seems to like it. Zogby says voters will blame the president.

Republicans had already been called out by The Economist:

IN THREE weeks, if there is no political deal, the American government will go into default. Not, one must pray, on its sovereign debt. But the country will have to stop paying someone: perhaps pensioners, or government suppliers, or soldiers. That would be damaging enough at a time of economic fragility. And the longer such a default went on, the greater the risk of provoking a genuine bond crisis would become.

The Journal op/ed sees what’s happening:

Mr. Obama is trying to present Republicans with a Hobson’s choice: Either repudiate their campaign pledge by raising taxes, or take the blame for any economic turmoil and government shutdown as the U.S. nears a debt default. In the former case Mr. Obama takes the tax issue off the table and demoralizes the tea party for 2012, and in the latter he makes Republicans share the blame for 9.2% unemployment.

The McConnell Plan avoids both of these.

It may work…

Quote of the day 05-10-2010

Raising progressive taxes is a better move than budget cuts. It gets money moving through the economy again, jump-starting the economic recovery that is the principal engine of state fiscal health.

via CSMonitor.com.

Wow

Overexuberant?

[UPDATE: Mr. Schuller responds more fully on his blog. I'll assume it's because he's new to blogging that he didn't link this post.]

OK, I got a Facebook invitation from Kurt Schuller, a Republican who’s running for Wisconsin state treasurer. His invitation read,

Kurt says, “I invite my fellow wisconsin [sic] conservatives to help me shrink wisconsins [sic] bloated government. Please consider joining my group. I hope you can support my effort”.

So I’m thinking, “What’s he gonna do?” Treasurers just sign checks in Wisconsin and other stuff.

Boring.

But I thought, “Well, I’ll click on his web site just for fun.”

Whoa. The dude wants to be the last state treasurer for Wisconsin. He says it will save $3 million or more.

He says the treasurer doesn’t even signs checks– just sits on some boards and oversees stuff.

Amazing.

But $3 million? Really?

Who knows?

Politicians and money

Most of us know that politicians, left, right and center like spending money, especially money that is not their own.

But there’s another aspect of this that some of us might not realize:

The Milwaukee School Board has spent 20 years ignoring a “fiscal time bomb” in the form of generous and unfunded health insurance benefits for retired MPS teachers and staff that will cost the district $5 billion by 2016, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

via Milwaukee schools face booming retiree health care costs – JSOnline.

I know. It’s surprising isn’t it?

We’re seeing the same thing in health care where there are plenty of accounting gimmicks. Social Security is another. The alleged trust fund has been raided over the years to pay for deficits in the regular budget.

Yes, there are consequences. But if they are far enough down the road like the MPS and Social Security, the politicians will be long out of office before the piper has to be paid.