Over The Cliff

Republicans are both grateful for and terrified by the Tea Party. The Tea Party allowed Reoublicans to rebrand themselves as something other than big spending, war loving Bush Republicans. This relationship comes with a price, however. The Tea Party is really the fringe right base that has always existed (the Birchers) but had been only part of the right’s coalition. In return for Tea Party support and energy, the Republican party became the Teapublican party. The problem for Teapublicans is now the American people are getting a good look (boy are we ever) and we’re not so thrilled. A new poll shows that the Tea Party obsessions are not the American public’s priorities and their solutions are very unpopular.

*** Chased by a tiger: Republicans may have won the battle in passing the two-week spending extension (that contains $4 billion in cuts), and Senate Democrats might be struggling to draft their own legislation to keep the government funded for the rest of the year. But our new NBC/WSJ poll suggests that Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place — or, as our co-pollster Bill McInturff puts it, between a cliff and a charging tiger. “It may be hard to understand why a person might jump off a cliff, unless you understand they’re being chased by a tiger,” he said. “That tiger is the Tea Party.” McInturff’s explanation: The Americans who are most concerned about spending cuts are core Republicans and conservatives, not independents or swing voters.

*** Popular vs. unpopular cuts: The NBC/WSJ poll also lists 26 different ways to reduce the federal budget deficit. The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81% said that was acceptable), eliminating spending on earmarks (78%), eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says aren’t necessary (76%) and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74%). The least popular: cutting funding for Medicaid (32% said that was acceptable), cutting funding for Medicare (23%), cutting funding for K-12 education (22%), and cutting funding for Social Security (22%). Those numbers, McInturff says, “serve as a huge flashing yellow sign to Republicans … if they are going to start to talk about changes to Medicare and Social Security” in April of this year, as House Republicans have promised.

As we dirty hippies have said all along, tax increases are unpopular but cuts to beloved programs are really, really unpopular. Americans are fine with cuts to other people’s programs (hence cuts to foreign aid are very popular) but not programs that they value. We jokingly said that one person’s “pork” is another’s important jobs program so the definition of “pork” is money going to someone else’s district.

The act of balancing what’s popular and necessary with the demands of the rabid base are becoming increasingly difficult for Republicans. The case in point is Speaker John Boehner. Thanks to Teapublicans, he’s now the most powerful Congressman but he’s also the weakest Speaker in recent memory. The caucus runs him not the other way around. What thanks does he get?

“You look like a fool,” Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips wrote in a post on the group’s website, directing his message at the Ohio Republican. “Charlie Sheen is now making more sense than John Boehner.”

Boehner “did not get the message” from the tea party movement demanding big cuts to federal spending, Phillips said, and “the honeymoon is over.” The movement should respond, he said, by finding “a candidate to run against John Boehner in 2012 and should set as a goal, to defeat in a primary, the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives.”

Phillips said Boehner has backpedaled on his promise to cut $100 billion from the 2011 budget with a continuing resolution spending bill passed in the House last month that included $61 billion in cuts, and is declaring victory before the House and Senate have agreed on a bill that funds the government for the rest of the year and not just the next two weeks. And the messages coming from the speaker have been confusing and contradictory, Phillips said.

“John Boehner is saying when the Senate comes back and they start negotiating with ‘Dingy’ Harry Reid, who does not want to make any cuts, the $61 billion figure is not safe,” Phillips wrote. “Then, Boehner had the gall to have a ‘mission accomplished’ moment when he declared they had fulfilled their commitment by passing a budget in the House that cut only $61 billion. Not making it law or making it happen, but only by passing the budget in the House.”

These are activists are not content with pats on the head and attention every election year. They want things done and they don’t care about John Boehner’s job. I could give you the standard words about lying down with dogs, etc but I think it goes deeper than that. This is the culmination of 30 years of misinformation. Republicans could have spent time informing the public but that takes hard work plus it might make it look like Democrats were trying to be thoughtful. Republicans have a base insulated from outside facts and convinced of its own righteousness. Now Republicans share responsibility for running the country and the facts and nuance of doing that runs counter to what the base believes.

Teapublicans are now put in a bind. Do what the country wants or do what the base wants. I just hope the rest of the country doesn’t have to fall over Boehner’s cliff in the meantime.