Midterm elections are often referendums on the party in power, so Democrats could capitalize solely on voters’ frustration with the Bush administration in 2006. But if Democrats hope to carry that momentum into 2008, they will have to address the fact that voters do not think highly of their party, either. In a recent Post-ABC News poll, just 35 percent said they approved of the job Republicans in Congress were doing, while only 41 percent gave a positive rating to the Democrats.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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29 Comments
Yeah! I mean the Democrats love loathing about the Bush low approval ratings, but they forget about their own.
Basically I believe that people are fed up with government in general, regardless of party, from the national, down to the state, and local level.
People might disagree with this, but I believe there is not much of a choice when it comes to politics, or should I say, competitive choices. We need a third party and independents to shake things up and make it interesting again.
The 92 presidential election was so much fun and interesting to follow because of Ross Perot throwing his hat in. Although I was too young to vote then, it was my first real experience of following politics. I thought to my self “WOW! Politics is great!”
Little did I know that it slowly became a whine fest, spin, and a yawn at times. I realized that politicans treat people like know-nothing-idiots, and I can see their arrogant, power hungry, elitism bleeding through. No wonder so many people are turned off.
But not all are bad and politics is not all bad. It just gets tiring whacking through the tall weeds of crap with a dull machete trying to uncover the truth.
You stated it well Joe W., that I believe has cause the general apathy among voters. And helped certain agendas to be brought in.
In the last ten years there has not been an election that I felt good about voting. The majority just seem to feel “why bother, it does not make a diference”.
General apathy has caused the masses to not even think about or pay attention. For the most part, the public does not care about what the state BOE has done or what the President is doing. LoL only those that are anal attentive enough to come to these message boards and blogs seem to know what is happening.
If you mention anything that is in the news. The people just seem to be bored and change the subject to sports or a T.V. show.(Sorry Eagle writers, unless you are sports. Your hard work is for not. People buy the Eagle for the sports section)
When it comes to Republican or Democrat. They might as well shoot their self in the foot and pass the gun across the alse for all the good they do in governement.I am a Republican, even I can not believe when they get control. It seem to be a mission of the party to mess it up. But of course then it be comes the Democrats turn and they do not do any better!
If you believe the Dems don’t do any better maybe we ought to be commenting on the economy. I believe that is at least one area where recent democratic administrations were superior to the republicans. Other issues could be a toss-up.
The problem with the Democrats goes beyond what Joe voiced so well. Besides the rants and raves lies a foundation that is fluid and shifting with whatever complaint they can muster. There is no real bedrock, no solid platform they can lay out for voters.
They have spent so much time hating Bush, the rich, big business, oil and the Iraqi war, that they have forgotten what they used to stand for.
What, other than their usual rants, have they offered to the American People that can be considered in any way a base we can believe in? They haven’t.
No Democrat has come forth with anything that would turn voters in this country into voters for a democratic cause. If Democrats win control of Washington again, it will be solely because of Bush, not anything the Democrats said or did.
The democrat party is, today, a sham and in shambles. They could use a healthy dose of wake up and smell the opportunities.
JM what does the GOP have to offer?
Tracy,
I would be interested in reading what specific policies the democrat administrations used (that republicans don’t) that were so great for the economy.
Tracy,Who said anything about the Republicans? I believe I was refering to the Democrats. Your question confirms my logic.
The question is, or should be: What do you, or the Democrats have to offer? Convince me with a platform, not rhetoric.
It’s obvious the Republicans, or at least the White House Republicans, have offered nothing but rhetoric lately.
Yes it would be!I didn’t follow economics or politics when the economy was better. I do remember the deficit being reduced and more opportunities for job seekers.I was doing all right financially, but now it seems I’ve got to be superman just to get by!In general it seems that everything but wages has gone up. Maybe this is a product of the new ‘global economy’, I don’t know.I’m sure open to what people from any political party have to say.
JM, I’m not into the rhetoric either, and would like to have the same question answered from both sides.I’m also tired of all the hype on issues that will never go away or be resolved. (abortion, etc.)I’m independent at the moment, though I’ve voted both dem and rep in the past.
Good analysis Joe.
The Democrats don’t want to propose any ideas or plans. They only want to be anti-Bush and anti-Republican. I think people understand that. That’s why there is little trust in Democrats to do any better.
An alternative is needed.
Tracy! Your perception is that government has complete control of the economy. It doesn’t. This precieved “better economy” you refered to in the late 1990’s under the Clinton Administration was a “bubble economy” driven by speculation and no production. Investors lost trillions under the bubble economy, and this was not the fault of Republicans or Bush. This happens in cycles in the economy all the time.
If you think the economy was so much better under the Democrats tell that to the people who lived through the Carter Administration or during FDR’s Depression for 10 years.
If you thought Clinton Administration was such a great economic engine, tell that to the people of Asia during the Asian Economic Crisis or when Mexico literally went completely Bankrupt and we bailed them out. I can go on about Russia and Eastern European countries and Afirca was completely and still is in disaster economic conditions. Looks like nobody really made out.
We started to pay down the debt and had a surplus? Yeah! Only in prejected numbers on paper. There was NO attempt to pay down the debt and the surplus was only a projection.
Lets just say that don’t put so much faith in government as the saviour of the economy. Yes! They can help it and hurt it, but it all is done through the people like me and you.
Your good economy is somebodies worst economy. Your worst economy is somebody’s best economy they ever had.
Joe,, you can refer to the Congressional Budget Orrife and find declining budget deficits through the late 1990s, and a surplus in 1999 and 2000. This is true for either “on budget” or total expenditures. The debt held by the public fell.
http://news.yahoo.com/i/742;_ylt=Ala_EQUo0oHf2AcayXASrY1bbBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBidHQxYjh2BHNlYwN5bnN0b3J5
about mid way down, “memo”
Prior FiscalYears
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.5009/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.3209/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.6209/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.1609/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.0609/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.8609/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.4309/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.6209/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.3409/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.7309/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.3909/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.3209/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.3809/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.6609/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.0309/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.2509/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.3209/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.1609/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00
You tell me where the public debt fell? http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm <— Not a yahoo source. An offical government source.
That’s total deficit. That’s not what is being discussed when one says there is a budget surplus, for example..that’s on the annual budget not the accumulated deficit.
There is a difference between deficit and debt. I mention debt.
Deficit is the excess of expenditures over revenue. Those numbers can be manipulated, projected, and does not give the actual total loss (or what is added to the total debt) in a given fiscal year.
Debt is the total amount the government owes. And with the snapshot of the numbers that the Treasury Deptment gives (to the penny), that number has NOT decreased in any given year. Meaning, the debt has never increased.
They could have paid down the debt, but the US government sets aside monies every year to pay down the debt (mostly interest). So you can say that even the Bush Administration pays down the debt.
The CBO numbers are like this. It may show that a few years in the late 90’s that we had no deficits during those years, but that is a play on numbers.
Lets say the US Government expects to pay $500 million in fiscal year 2006 to the public debt that year, because it expects a budget deficit of $500 million, would that means $0 would be added to the public debt that year?
Nope! Although they would have not added to the public debt, the public debt still grows because of interest. The Clinton Administration has not accumulated enough revenue to surpass the deficit and the interest paid on public debt, so therefore the public debt still grows more and more each year.
The last sentance in the third paragraph, I made a mistake. “the debt has never increased.”
I meant, “the debt has never decreased.”
Joe, you said there was never a surplus. The figures from the CBO, available here:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0
in Table 1, seem to say something different for 1999 and 2000.
I do not understand your reasoning on how the CBO numbers are a “play,” as you said. Isn’t the deficit each for year calculated by taking receipts and subtracting expenditures for that year, those expenditures including debt expense (interest)?
I also do not know how to understand the difference between the “Debt Held by the Public” column in Table 1 and the total debt of the United States. The numbers are very different.
Joe–you have to look at the debt as a percentage of the GDP. When the GDP goes up, the same amount of debt gets relatively smaller.
Just like your mortgage gets relatively smaller if you got a ten percent raise for instance.
When you look at national debt as a percentage of GDP, it was at its lowest point right when Carter was voted out by Reagan, then Reagan’s “supply side” crock of sh*t ran the debt up to a historical high, Bush I hit another historical high, Clinton moved the debt down and balanced the budget several years in a row.
Then Bush II came along with his tax cuts for the rich during a war, something that has never happened in the history of the world.
Debt has hit another historical high.
Whoa Joe I gotta call you on at least one glaring MISTAKE!
The Great Depression was solved by FDR not suffered under with FDR. The Great Depression began with the market crash under the Hoover administration. Now World War 2 did help get us out of that depression, but it was chiefly the anti trust and pro labor policies and federal programs that FDR implemented that broke the hold of the robber barons of industry that truly caused the depression.
Democrat ideas? They are all around you! Trouble is you folks on the right are so i love with your so called “free market”
Socialized medicine…..Dem Idea that would break the hold of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies on not just who lives and dies, but how many billions are spent in the process.
Increasing minimum wage…..another Dem standard. Get wages up to a living level and there are no jobs available to lure invaders to America from Mexico. Border problem solved.
More? Dems had the idea of comp time off as opposed to overtime pay for over worked American workers. Of course the GOP twisted this into “OK for comp time, but that time is to be at the discretion of the employer” basically turning the ability to earn free time into the employers right to work you to death for a few months and then lay you off for a few months. Republicans are real good at corrupting good ideas that way.
The whole “Dems have no ideas” is the spin mostly of right wing radio and folks whose ideas have PROVEN to be bad. They have both houses and the pResidency and times have not in the last 60 years been worse.
Damn right, J.R.
The proof is right at the top of this page. We got several paragraphs of what Bush “believes.”
When was the last time a democrat got media coverage about what he or she believes? Last time the democrats got much press coverage was during the election over a year ago.
I agree that dems need to do a better job of get their values and policies out.
But if you think people are just going to kick back and say “they’re all the same” after high gas prices, the Iraq quagmire, the incompetence of the Katrina response, the historic high debt, failed social security “reform,” and corruption and lying among the President’s administration, well . . . that’s just not very realistic, is it?
Actually! It was NOT the Democratic Administration it was the Republican Congress. They hold the purse strings.
Well! If the debt decrese, why is the treasury department showing it increased? Looks like two conflicting data, but this is common in government.
Although going back to politics, it looks like the best combination is a Republican Congress and a Democratic Administration. Because now, Republicans who control everything is a spending pork machine. I see no difference between Democrats and Republicans.
Although I would completely disagree with socialized medicine and increasing minimum wage. If that is the Democrat platform for next year, you can count me out.
Joe–you are so wrong, if you just take everything you say and negate it, you’d be right.
Clinton passed a tax increase that every single Congressional Republican voted against. That’s what balanced the budget and paid down the debt.
At one point Clinton shut down the gov’t rather than let the Repubs continue their “borrow and spend” ways. Remember?
Apparently not.
And Joe, click on the link below to get an easy to understand graph that shows debt AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP.
Then maybe you’ll finally “get it,” although I’m not holding my breath since you seem to have your mind made up without letting facts “confuse” you . . .
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
What does the graph prove Galahad. Just proves that we are in extreme debt position.
Nobody (well should say that), in there right mind would accumlate the percentage of debt to income, it’s not a healthy sign.
Percentage of GDP doesn’t mean anything to the debt. Again! Every single year, monies are allocated to pay down the debt, but it rises faster than what we pay.
I will give you that Reagan and Bush are making it worse. But I think that Reagan was one of our worst presidents in modern history, and Bush isn’t any better.
But I don’t see Clinton as anything to look at. He advocated for raising taxes and making the tax code more complicated for which he paid dearly for it by having a sweeping change in Congress to the Republicans, for the first time in 40 years.
The Republican Congress with Contract for America made policy to reduce the debt and work towards a budget surplus. They accomplished that.
But when Bush came into the Presidency, it is now a spend for all. I’m actually dissappointed by Congress, not just Republicans, they are getting bad, but Democrats are far off the deep in.
I completely disagree with liberalism and leftism. So you will never find me voting for a leftist Democrat or agreeing with leftist policies to save my life. But there are Democrats I do like. So I’m not partison, just I reject leftism.
How can anyone take the figures on the economy and use it to prop up the administration and bash those past administrations that were doing so much better?I guess we just saw how.
TRACY,
It is interesting how much of the discussion here is centered on the results wich are then attributed to the executive branch as desired.
However nobody can really point to the ‘magic policy’ that either administration used to ‘create’ the economy.
CF was out of town. He’s sure y’all missed him.
So, ‘voter frustration will only go so far?’ eh? Want to see those Democratic poll numbers go up? Fight Bush bloody on every goddamn thing. Go to war.
That’s right: crush Alito, use the filibuster, shut down the Congress, and resist every radical right wing GOP policy possible. People, BUSH IS AT 37% APPROVAL. That means the American public HATES HIM, KNOWS HE’S A LIAR, AND DOESN’T TRUST HIM.
Advice to Democrats: fight the bully, ignore the media, and reap the rewards. Bush is on the canvas: attack him and finish off his Presidency before he does any more damage to the country or the world.
P.S. Last week’s elections in Ohio were stolen. Massively. Read it and weep for American democracy.
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1559