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News reporting is fixated on the D.C. beltway scheming, beaming pictures of government officials zipping in and out of meetings with occasional public comment. Meanwhile, the public is already reaching a verdict, and it is a harsh one -- the Republican Party is out of step with the country's fiscal priorities.

As its handling of the debt limit debate tarnishes the GOP's national brand name, President Barack Obama may inadvertently be limiting the damage to the opposing party.

The GOP's insistence on reducing U.S. debt solely by making cuts to government programs is unpopular and increasingly so -- less than a fifth of Americans favor this approach as opposed to 56% who favor a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes (that's a 10 percentage point jump as the debt ceiling debate has played out since early June). [Polls found at http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm -- you should check them out, they're very telling!]

Judging from the reticence of GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney to jump into the center of the fray, it's not lost on Republican strategists that a lopsided 65% of independents favor the combination spending/tax approach.

At a time when Obama's standing might be expected to be sagging as economic doldrums persist, Republicans have handed him a boost. Over the past several months, Obama received more credit for behaving responsibly on the budget, rising from 46% to 52%, while the GOP's already poor standing for fiscal irresponsibility inched up from 60% to 63%.

Just over a half of the country is ready to blame the GOP for failing to raise the debt ceiling as compared with 30% who would blame Obama.

One of the most politically damaging aspects of the debt ceiling debate for Republicans is that their fiscal priorities are at odds with super-majorities of Americans. About three-quarters favor raising taxes on the rich and clawing back tax advantages for oil and gas companies and the private jets owned by businesses. Meanwhile, the GOP's open campaign to substantially scale back spending on Social Security and Medicare and restructure those programs is opposed by more than 8 out of 10 Americans.

One consequence is that Americans have lost trust in the GOP's ability to handle one of the government's most popular programs, Medicare.

While trust in Obama and congressional Republicans was at parity in May, the GOP is now lagging far behind -- only 37% believe it will do a better job handling Medicare compared with 50% who look to the president. This may be a leading indicator of how seniors and their supporters will vote next year.

It should come as no surprise that the Republican Party's general standing has taken a hit. For sure, neither party is popular -- the Democratic and Republican parties started out the spring with Americans split in whether they favor each or not. But the ferocious debt ceiling debate is now cratering the GOP's standing -- 55% now express unfavorable views (as compared to 48% in March) -- while the public remains split over the Democratic Party.

But as the GOP prepares to fall on its sword, Obama has inadvertently fueled the generalized disgust with government that propelled Republicans to striking midterm election wins in 2010 and continues to generate support for aspects of its agenda. The nearly 80% of Americans who are dissatisfied with the country's direction and believe that it is heading on the wrong track are the highest historical levels under Obama.

The president's flagging of Washington's "dysfunction" reinforces the distrust of government that many Americans harbor, oddly making it harder for him to rally support behind government programs such as Medicare and Social Security. This may help to explain why the GOP is losing the debt ceiling debate and yet three-quarters of Americans favor a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

The lessons moving forward are clear. Republican leaders intent on winning the White House and strengthening their position in Congress need to steer their party back to the views of mainstream America or squander what may be setting up as a propitious opportunity in 2012 to run against the "in" party in a time of deep discontent.

As for Democrats, they need to focus like a laser beam on the concrete programs that many Americans rely upon and steer away from the sweeping conclusions about government waste and dysfunction that undergird a genuine philosophical conservatism in America. http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/27/jacobs.americans.verdict/index.h
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We have the option of voting for Tea-baggers who are a bunch of tantrum-throwing reality-in-denial morons (just look at Rappy) and the business-as-usual Republicrats who got us into this mess. If you tossed out the Tea-baggers and the Wall-Street Republicrats you'd be left with about 20 honest Senators and 20 honest Representatives- mostly Democrats but at least one Republican (Ron Paul) and one Independent.

Looking at both party tickets there are few real alternatives to either option. And given Americans' phenomenal ability to avoid hard decisions, the obstacle of "no obvious choices" leaves us bent over for a good reaming. Hopefully, people will wake up enough to do something effective in their own interests (besides bitching and whining to a pollster) but not so panicked or angry that they stampede into another reality-deficient movement.

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The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is set to reject Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's plan to raise the nation's debt ceiling Saturday -- partisan payback for the Democratic-controlled Senate's rejection of Speaker John Boehner's plan Friday night.

The twin votes are a likely prelude to a long weekend of furious back-room negotiations between congressional leaders looking for a way to end a tense political standoff and avoid a potentially catastrophic federal default next week.

The Senate voted 59-41 to table Boehner's measure -- effectively killing it -- almost immediately after the plan was approved by the House in a sharply polarized 218-210 vote. No Democrats supported the measure; 22 of the House's 240 Republicans also opposed it.
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Any proposal put forward by Reid will ultimately need the support of at least seven Senate Republicans in order to reach the 60-vote margin required to overcome a certain GOP filibuster. [Back to The Party of No filibustering...gawd forbid we should have a straight up-and-down vote on ANYTHING, ever!]
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[pertinent points on each plan:]
Boehner's plan, which has since been revised, proposed generating a total of $917 billion in savings while initially raising the debt ceiling by $900 billion. His plan, however, would require a second vote by Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a combined $2.5 trillion -- enough to last through the end of 2012. It would create a special congressional committee to recommend additional savings of $1.6 trillion or more.

Any failure on the part of Congress to enact mandated spending reductions or abide by new spending caps would trigger automatic across-the-board budget cuts.

The plan, as amended Friday, also calls for congressional passage of a balanced budget amendment before the second vote to raise the debt ceiling, which would likely be required at some point during the winter.
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As for Reid's plan, a revised version he proposed Friday would reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.4 trillion and raise the debt ceiling by a similar amount. It also includes $1 trillion in savings based on the planned U.S. withdrawals from military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Reid's plan also would establish a congressional committee made up of 12 House and Senate members to consider additional options for debt reduction. The committee's proposals would be guaranteed by a Senate vote with no amendments by the end of the year.

In addition, it incorporates a process based on a proposal by McConnell that would give Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling in two steps while providing Congress the opportunity to vote its disapproval.

Among other things, Reid has stressed that his plan meets the key GOP demand for no additional taxes. Boehner, however, argued this week that Reid's plan fails to tackle popular entitlement programs such as Medicare, which are among the biggest drivers of the debt.

[So what does the American public think?]A recent CNN/ORC International Poll reveals a growing public exasperation and demand for compromise. Sixty-four percent of respondents to a July 18-20 survey preferred a deal with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. Only 34% preferred a debt reduction plan based solely on spending reductions.

According to the poll, the public is sharply divided along partisan lines; Democrats and independents are open to a number of different approaches because they think a failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause a major crisis for the country. Republicans, however, draw the line at tax increases, and a narrow majority of them oppose raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances. (More at http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/30/debt.talks/index.html )

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