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How the Obama Stimulus Plan is the Best Thing to Ever Happen to the GOP

Submitted by Alan Peel on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 12:07
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Rasmussen Reports, one of the two most accurate polling firms in predicting the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Race, has come out with a series of new polling numbers the last couple of days that should come as welcome news for the Republican Party. It all has to do with one thing: the opposition to Barack Obama’s so-called “stimulus” package that has been described as a “piñata” and a “rotting corpse”.

In other words, the American people, who were once for the Obama stimulus plan, are now suddenly against it. For the first time, the support for the Obama plan has fallen below the number of those who oppose it (37% support it versus 43% opposing it). Why? There are 50% of Americans who believe that the plan will make the economy worse.

The end result is that this is becoming a huge shot in the arm for the Republicans who are in opposition to the Obama stimulus plan. For the first time since early December of last year, the Generic Congressional Ballot shows the Republicans within four points of the Democrats (42% to 38%) and more than half of all Americans (54%) think Congress is doing a “poor” job while only 12% think Congress is doing an “excellent” or “good” job (that’s beginning to rival Rod Blagojevich territory when Blago had a 7% approval rating back in December). 

If the Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy “Margaret Hamilton” Pelosi want to become a minority party again by 2010 and 2012, all they need to do is to keep doing what they are currently doing. 

In the House vote, every Republican and 11 Democrats voted against the plan, but it was not enough to stop the plan from passing the House. In the Senate, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) has tried to reassemble the “Gang of 14” to get any stimulus plan passed. It’s more a sign of desperation instead of bipartisanship. 

Before our eyes, the plan’s details, namely the pork-barrel projects, are being decried. There was money for contraception which has now been removed. There is money for a discus golf course in Austin, Texas. There is money for Shreveport, Louisiana to purchase eight Harley-Davidson motorcycles for the police department. There is money for a dog park in Chula Vista, California. And, of all places, Las Vegas is asking for $2 million for more neon signs. 

As the days go by, the American people are waking up to what is really going on in Washington and it flies in the face of the “change” that President Obama’s campaign was all about. Instead, Obama should have just cut out the Barbara Streisand (B.S.) and just campaigned on “Politics as usual”. 

Voters Reject Obama's call for Bilingualism

Submitted by lagomorph on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 15:56
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Is it just me, or is this a golden opportunity issue for McCain to exploit? Rasmussen's poll responders certainly seem to think so, to the tune of 59% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans...

Barack Obama's Call for Bilingualism

Barack says:  "It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here and they speak English, they speak French, they speak German and we go over to Europe and all we can say is, Merci Beaucoup....right?"

Barack Obama said yesterday that “instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English,” Americans “need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.” A national telephone survey conducted last month by Rasmussen Reports found that U.S. voters overwhelmingly disagree with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. 

Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.

In his comments, Obama emphasized the economic benefits of learning a second language: “If you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job.” Data suggests that most voters see the issue in a broader context.

A separate survey found that one factor fueling the anger over immigration is the belief that most government officials encourage immigrants to retain the culture of their home country. This helps explain why voters who are angry about immigration are primarily angry at the government, not immigrants. Among those angry about immigration, 59% believe most government officials encourage immigrants to retain their home country culture.

Last fall, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that 77% of Americans believed that employers should be allowed to require employees to speak English while on the job. With the Supreme Court recently upholding tougher standards for voter identification at the polls, 65% of voters now believe election ballots should only be printed in English. Thirty-two percent (32%) say they should be printed in both English and Spanish.

The importance of assimilation into the culture is highlighted in another recent survey: 54% of voters say it is more important to encourage all immigrants to embrace American culture than it is to reduce the number of immigrants. Just 36% take the opposite view and say reducing immigration is a higher priority. That survey, as with many others, also found a strong preference for ballots and other government documents to be printed in English only.

Only 26% believe that every American should be able to speak at least two languages. In his recent comments, Obama said parents should be thinking, “How can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.“

Broken down along party lines, 79% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats reject the idea that all Americans should know multiple languages. Among unaffiliated voters, 68% say their fellow citizens do not need to know a language other than English.

 

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