Things are so polarized right now with how to proceed economically and politically, I don’t believe any poll or statistic can definitely define the correct sentiment of how America wants to go forward. Virtually everything you see depends on how they ask the question, or how the data is interpreted by humans. Nate Silver colors his data for his liberal audience. A lot of Fox data leans right. Let’s lay out the issues and see if you agree. Where do you stand on them?
More Spending (More Central Planning) to stimulate economy vs Cutting Spending and Tax Cuts (Less Central Planning) to stimulate economy
Obamacare (Socialized medicine) vs Vouchers and Free market medicine
Dodd-Frank (Central Planning, more bureaucracy) vs Free markets
Energy Planning (Central Planning, heavy regulation) vs Industry/consumer determined energy policy
Targeted tax cuts vs broad tax cuts
Increased govt spending vs decreased govt spending
Higher levels of Regulation vs Lower levels of regulation
More agencies and departments vs elimination of agencies and departments
What we are witnessing is an argument over the freedom to choose versus entities making choices for us. It has definite parallels to the Civil War (slavery vs freedom) and the migration from Europe to the US (monarchy vs democracy).
There is only one way to settle it. An election. That’s definitive. In 2010, the people that believed in central planning got creamed. In the Wisconsin recall election (one state, one data point) the people that believe in central planning failed to retake control.
Polling shows central planning isn’t popular. I think this is the real indicator of the low Congressional polling data. It isn’t party specific. People aren’t blaming a one year Republican controlled Congress on the economic frailties. They are blaming central planning. Congress is a classic example of centrally planned solutions to problems no matter who is in charge.
The more Congress pushes solutions to problems that are not centrally planned-the higher their popularity will go. Education will have to come with those kinds of solutions, because the media doesn’t know how to interpret them-or is outright against them.
The typical example I can give is ask this question, “Did World War Two bring us out of the Great Depression?” Fact is, it didn’t. Read a Monetary History of the US by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz.
Where do you stand? For central planning, or for freedom?
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