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Politico...
Govs face budget
blowback
By Alexander Burns
It was supposed to be one of the clearest messages of the 2010
elections: Voters were finally fed up with government spending.
It felt like the usual rules had changed, and that Americans were
worried enough about the size of government to support a new era of
belt-tightening. They wanted leaders to make the tough choices – and
would stick by the ones who did.
Now, a new wave of polling has challenged that consensus, raising
serious questions about whether voters really are yearning for a
grown-up conversation about the cost of government — or would simply
rather keep punting the problem down the road, just like in the past.
Almost every governor who’s tried to deliver a take-your-medicine
message has paid a price. And widespread polling data suggests a chasm
between what Americans say they want and the price they’re prepared to
pay to get there.
In Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich’s approval rating stood at just 30
percent last week, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. Earlier
in the month — even before Kasich detailed a budget featuring cuts to
Medicaid, local governments and more — the University of Cincinnati had
that number at 40 percent. Both surveys showed nearly half of voters
disapproved of Kasich.
In Connecticut, Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy is also underwater in the
polls—he clocked a 35-percent approval, 40-percent disapproval rating
after unveiling a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts to close a
more than $3 billion deficit.
Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – an icon of conservative
austerity, whose clashes with big labor and tough-talking ways have
made him a national Republican hero – has seen voters respond with
hesitation to his spending plan.
Christie’s favorability rating is still in barely positive territory,
but a Rutgers-Eagleton poll found it dropped by a net of 10 percentage
points in the wake of Christie’s February budget address.
It turns out there’s a reason they call them tough choices.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the vice chairman of the Republican
Governors Association, explained the blowback from voters as a part of
the “disconnect between the philosophy of smaller government” and the
nuts-and-bolts reality of paring back spending.
“There’s this inherent disconnect between what governors have to do and
what people might want to see in the very short run,” McDonnell told
POLITICO. “You have to have the courage to do the right thing and then
be able to withstand the criticism until the results show up.”
Rutgers-Eagleton poll director David Redlawsk went further, suggesting
that voters don’t “have a really good sense of what significant cuts
really mean.”
Read the rest of the story, with links, at Politico
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