SALON

Wednesday, Sep 14, 2011 4:27 PM UTC

Obama’s bad jobs trade

Medicare cuts to pay for a stimulus plan that voters don't think will work? No wonder his poll numbers are dropping

By

Topics: Unemployment, How the World Works, Barack Obama,

Obama's bad jobs tradeU.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks to military personnel at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, June 15, 2010. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY HEADSHOT) (Credit: © Jim Young / Reuters)

The juxtaposition of two Wednesday headlines does not bode well for President Obama:

From Bloomberg: “Obama Approval Plummets to New Low Among Americans Skeptical of Jobs Plan.”

From the Financial Times: “Obama to Propose Medicare and Medicaid Cuts.”

When you are proposing cuts to programs American voters like in order to pay for an initiative that American voters don’t think will work, you’re in trouble. Even in the unlikely event that Congress approves Obama’s job plan, there’s still a worst case scenario: The economy doesn’t improve, and Republicans running for president get to blame Obama both for high unemployment and for cutting Medicare.

Digging into a couple of other polls that also show growing dissatisfaction with Obama, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent argues that the real takeaway should be that voters are unhappy with the economy, and not the jobs plan. When broken down into its constituent parts, the American Jobs Act polls well.

But that’s got to be scant consolation for the White House. Even if Americans support parts of the jobs plan in principle, Bloomberg’s polling indicates that “by a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, Americans doubt the package of tax cuts and spending proposals intended to jumpstart job creation that Obama submitted to Congress this week will bring down the 9.1 percent jobless rate.”

Meanwhile, they really, really like their Medicare.

Obama’s obvious bet is that Republicans will reject the jobs plan, and the politically unsavory cuts to Medicare won’t materialize. That will leave him free to campaign against Republican obstructionism. But that also still leaves Obama with a bad economy chained around his neck. And if that’s what’s making voters unhappy, they will still be unhappy a year from now no matter how vociferously the president tears into the GOP.

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 28 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
2993 points2994 points | 1596 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
909 points910 points | 449 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
141 points142 points | 42 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
23 points24 points | 13 comments
vote
Recent scandals are Whitewater redux, not Watergate
21 points22 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations