I’m not sure that Obama will be able to get from his time fighting inequality as a community organizer in the city of Chicago. I’m not sure he knows HOW to get away from his time fighting inequality.
But America wants him to focus on fixing the economy and bringing more jobs:
Nearly every major poll indicates that the top issues for voters are jobs and the economy. Making the wealthy pay more in income taxes? Not so much, at least according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll.
An excerpt from Gallup:
“Creating good jobs, reducing corruption in the federal government, and reducing the federal budget deficit score highest when Americans rate 12 issues as priorities for the next president to address. Americans assign much less importance to increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and dealing with environmental concerns.”
In fact, higher taxes for the rich was given the lowest priority of the dozen issues, Gallup reports.
Respondents rated “extremely important” the following issues: “creating good jobs” (48 percent of respondents); “reducing corruption in the federal government” (45 percent); “reducing the federal budget deficit” (44 percent); “dealing with terrorism and other international threats” (42 percent).
After a number of other issues, it jumps down to “dealing with environmental concerns, such as global warming,” (21 percent). The same percentage — 21 percent — cited “increasing taxes on wealthy Americans” as an extremely important issue.
The poll would seem to indicate that the fairness arguments made by President Obama and his campaign aren’t top concerns for voters.
I think this is spot on for two reasons:
- People don’t think there is a fairness in taxation issue
- In so far as there is, no one really cares. People compare their wealth to those around them and few see the excesses of the very wealthy. But what they DO want is to regain some confidence in the job markets.
But that’s probably just me talking, not the folks who support our President:
What’s really striking about the poll results is that not only was this true of voters in the aggregate but of self-identified Obama voters, too.
Among Obama supporters, only 32 percent said raising taxes on the wealthy should be a top priority of the next president. That also put it dead last on the list of 12 issues among that demographic.
Well, maybe America HAS got it right.