Interesting polling data and other thoughts

At the risk of stepping on the toes of sites like my fellow MBA member the Hedgehog Report, I’ve come across a couple interesting polls this morning. Actually, one was quite accidental because I was updating my Yahoo home page and found out I can get a feed from the folks at Pew Research.

So I did that, and what was the third poll up there (disclosed on Wednesday)? 60 percent of Republican voters believe the party should move in a more conservative direction. Well, they didn’t call me but I would have bumped that number up another tenth of a percent. The results actually tied in nicely with yesterday’s post about recent remarks by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer at the National Press Club. Naturally, Hoyer would have probably taken the contrarian view of the 32% of GOP voters who described themselves as moderate or liberal – naturally 66% of that set wanted the GOP to move left. Folks, we tried that and you can see how well that trick worked.

The GOP has a set of principles which can generally be described as conservative, so people like the majority of respondents (myself included) were quite vexed when the party moved in a direction toward a larger federal government, directly violating their stated principles. It’s unfortunate to me as well that the debate seems to have shifted toward the question of how large entitlement programs should be and away from whether they should exist at all – personally I refuse to cede that ground because when I read the Constitution, “promote the general Welfare” doesn’t mean government handouts.

Speaking of government handouts, the Big Three bailout doesn’t seem to be gaining much favor either. I saw this polling data on the Club For Growth site which showed that even in the far-left bastions of the country like Portland, Oregon and Boston the bailout has less than 40 percent support. Obviously they didn’t cite a poll taken in Detroit or any other Rust Belt city but my sense is that, outside of areas within the shadow of an auto plant, the idea of a Big Three bailout is not well-liked.

Growing up in an area where it was joked that if Detroit sneezed, we caught the cold, it’s nice to see that the bailout isn’t universally supported there either.

One of the first political campaigns I ever helped out on was to put Maggie Thurber, a Toledo-area blogger, in as the county Clerk of Courts. She eventually became a County Commissioner and radio show host. I sort of figured she’d have something to say on the bailout on her site called Thurber’s Thoughts and I was proven correct.

Of course, there is the tension of living in an area which is really dependent on the auto industry. In a separate post Maggie wrote:

I’ve struggled with the issue of the automotive bailout currently being debated.

On the principled side, I oppose the government action. On the compassion side, I have empathy for the individuals and families affected by the problems.

There is plenty of blame for the current situation from the individuals demanding unsustainable wages and benefits all the way up to the CEOs, who made the bad decisions over the last decade, and Congress, who is more interested in placating special interests than in protecting all the rest of us who foot the bills.

Aside from the CEO salary remarks, I tend to agree with Maggie’s assessments. I have no animosity toward most of the executive salaries and perks because there’s only one CEO as opposed to thousands of workers, so the guy in charge generally (with some exceptions) has to have shown some amount of talent and creative thinking in order to have gotten to a career point such as he or she has. Out of the tens of thousands of dollars one pays to buy a new Detroit-made auto, the chief executive’s pay and perks might account for $50 of the sum. Admittedly showing up for a Congressional hearing to plead for taxpayer cash via corporate jet isn’t all that great of a PR move, but would they have been as savaged for doing so had no money been involved? If they showed up saying only, “would you please lay off these oppressive CAFE standards we have to deal with?” I doubt the transportation mode would have been nearly the issue. As I’ve stated for quite awhile, the best thing the federal government can do for the auto industry is drop most of its regulatory restrictions on it.

But what if the feds said no and the Big Three had to declare bankruptcy? In theory, they could continue to operate while reorganizing their debts – this happens all the time. However, the ball would be squarely served into the UAW’s court. Do they stand firm on their wages and benefits and commit occupational suicide, or do they relent mid-contract in order for their employees to maintain their jobs? Obviously that puts the United Auto Workers’ management in a bind and would make for some very contentious union gatherings in coming months. Nor do I think that wildcat strikes or sick-outs by workers dissatisfied with the changes would be out of the question.

We live in interesting yet troubled times, folks. And it seems to me that the next several sounds you hear will be of plenty of shoes dropping. Wonder if they’ve done a poll on which shoe people think will drop next?

One final note: while the union angrily talks about right-to-work states bailing out their competition, the governor of one sets them straight. (h/t NetRightNation).

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

2 thoughts on “Interesting polling data and other thoughts”

  1. I kind of wondered if you knew Maggie Thurber. I’ve encountered her in my work with the Buckeye Institute. She’s a great lady and the Toledo region is lucky to have her.

  2. Thanks for the mention!

    I do want to clarify, though. I have no problem with the pay for CEOs…it was their bad business decisions I dislike which are as much to blame for their current situation as everything else is.

    However, being raised in a family business, you learn that you cannot take so much out of the company that you leave it without the resources to continue on profitably.

    And when you’re going begging for money, you need to show where you’ve already cut costs – including in your own compensation package.

    And thanks for the compliment, Marc!

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