posted at 7:20 pm on July 21, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
printer-friendly

Tina touched on this in the previous post, but it’s important enough to look into the numbers.  Harry Reid might consider the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act the worst piece of legislation in the history of, well, legislation, but he doesn’t get much company among American adults.  In the latest CNN poll, two-thirds of voters favor the idea of tying a raise in the debt ceiling to spending caps and a balanced budget amendment, and this isn’t a survey of conservative-leaning likely voters, either.  However, if you expect the CNN story about its own poll to highlight this result, then you obviously haven’t been reading CNN long (via Poor Richard’s News):

    Americans are hungry for a solution to the debt ceiling debate but there is a big partisan divide that isn’t going to make a solution easy to achieve, according to a new national survey.

    And a CNN/ORC International Poll also indicates that while Democrats and independent voters are open to a number of different approaches, Republicans draw the line at tax increases, and many of them oppose raising the nation’s debt ceiling under any circumstances.

    “That may create a problem for the Republican party, because most Americans think that GOP has been acting irresponsibly in the debt ceiling talks and they will blame congressional Republicans, not President Barack Obama, if no action is taken on the debt ceiling by August 2,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

One has to go thirteen paragraphs into the story to find CNN addressing this at all:

    Republicans like the “cut, cap, and balance” approach to the debt ceiling, as do Democrats and independents. Most Americans support a balanced budget amendment, and most, but not as many, think an amendment is necessary to get federal spending under control. A balanced budget amendment passed the House earlier this week, but a vote in the Senate is expected to fail.

Er, yeah.  In other words, a consensus exists across all political lines that the CCB/BBA approach would be a good idea.  When one scrolls down to the crosstab sections of the raw data, the consensus becomes very, very clear.  The CCB/BBA approach wins majorities in every single demographic — including self-described liberals.  Sixty-three percent of Democrats back the House bill.  The least supportive age demographic is 50-64YOs at 62/37; the least supportive regional demographic is the Midwest at 61/39.  Even those who express opposition to the Tea Party supports it 53/47.

In other words, it’s a clean sweep.  Simply put, there is no political demographic at all where the CCB/BBA doesn’t get majority support.  The BBA on its own does even better.  It gets 3-1 support (74/24), and except for those Tea Party opponents (56%) and self-professed liberals (61/37), doesn’t get below 70% support in any demographic.

Guess what doesn’t get much support?  The McConnell plan.  Respondents rejected the idea of letting Obama raise the debt ceiling on his own, 34/65.  Not one single demographic supports the idea, not even Democrats (40/60) or liberals (34/65).

To quote Barack Obama, the American people are sold — on the Republican plan passed in the House to deal with the debt-ceiling and spending crises.  Too bad CNN buried the lede.

wait