Does the American Public Really Support Bowles-Simpson?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Andrew Sullivan thinks that defeat in November will chasten Republicans and make them more likely to compromise. I doubt it. I think it takes several successive defeats to accomplish that (think Democrats under Reagan/Bush or Labor under Thatcher/Major), and at least one of those defeats needs to be a big one. But Republicans won the 2010 midterms, and if they lose this year it will probably be close. That’s just not enough to convince them that they need to change.

But who knows? Maybe a few of them will see the writing on the wall, and Obama will certainly have more leverage over Congress in January if he lets the Bush tax cuts expire in December. That might force some tax compromises in the short term. But I’m even more skeptical of Sullivan’s followup:

I think Americans want a fiscal compromise on a sane, Bowles-Simpson line. And radical tax reform is an area of common ground. That kind of deal is normally only possible in a second term, when the president is not going to get political capital for it, and if it is bipartisan, which was the idea behind Bowles-Simpson as well.

….And on immigration, all you need is a few Republicans to absorb the lesson of alienating the critical Latino constituency. If Jeb Bush and Karl Rove came out for a deal, and they both support one, politics change change. In other words, as I wrote, this is about the shift in thinking, a change in leverage after an election, not before it. Elections can concentrate the mind. The GOP loves to win and if it sees its current path is doomed, the fever, in Obama’s metaphor, might break.

Do Americans really want Bowles-Simpson? I guess anything’s possible, but if something like this passes it will most likely be in spite of the American public, not because of it. I know that “compromise” sounds great, and lots of Americans say they’re in favor of it, but when push comes to shove what that usually means is that they think the other guys should compromise. The tax jihadists still won’t want tax increases and the interest groups still won’t want spending cuts and old people will still fight Medicare and Social Security reform to their dying breath. It’s not impossible for some kind of Bowles-Simpson-ish thing to happen, but the truth is that it will almost certainly be unpopular. Politicians will have to drag the public into it, not the other way around.

Immigration might be a different story, though. I think a lot of Republican pols really do understand that diehard opposition to immigration reform is killing them, and the political calculus is different too. At this point, I suspect that big business would mostly be willing to support a reasonable bill, even if it contains tough employer sanctions; e-Verify continues to generate opposition, but it’s declining as the accuracy of the system gets better; Obama has spent four years amping up border security; and hardcore opposition to immigration may well be smaller than we think. Yesterday, for example, Bill Bishop reported on a very interesting poll that asked rural voters about immigration policy. It turns out that if you read them the Democratic position, only 39% support it. But if you read it to them without telling them it’s the Democratic position, 49% support it. That could well go up to 60% or higher if compromise language became the de facto Republican position.

So then: short-term tax compromise? Quite possible. Immigration reform? Somewhat possible. Bowles-Simpson? Not impossible, but the public will have to be dragged into it kicking and screaming.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate