Steven Thomma — Voters want soft fiscal cliff landing, but offer no net

Americans clearly want Washington to solve its looming budget crisis, and they clearly reject almost every option to do that, according to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll.

The only option that voters endorse, by a ratio of 3-to-2, is to raise taxes on the wealthy.

A majority oppose other often-discussed options, including raising taxes on everyone, cutting Medicaid or Medicare spending, raising the age for Medicare, or taking away tax deductions for charitable contributions or home mortgage interest.

McClatchy Newspapers
Voters want soft fiscal cliff landing, but offer no net
Steven Thomma

There is no way to get "there" from "here." It's those pesky numbers.

Sigh. If they only knew the truth.

Moron of the week award goes to Senator Tom Coburn

“It doesn’t really matter what happens at the end of this year because ultimately the numbers and the bond holders throughout the world will determine what we’ll spend and what we won’t. So, we can play the political game that is being played out in Washington right now or we can be absolutely honest with the American people and say, ‘Medicare is going bankrupt, Social Security disability will be bankrupt in two years, Social Security trust fund will be bankrupt in five years, Social Security total will be bankrupt in 16,17 years.’”

“The fact is we are spending money we don’t have on things we don’t absolutely need,” he concluded. “And there’s no grownups in Washington that will say, ‘Timeout, stop the politics, let’s have a compromise rather than play the game through the press and hurt the country.’ We’re already going to get another debt downgrade just from what’s happening now because nobody in positions of power are willing to do what’s important and necessary for our country.”

The Raw Story
Coburn: Medicare and Social Security ‘are things we don’t absolutely need’ (video)