It’s All About Jobs…

The New York Times and CBS came out with a poll this week…

Poll Shows Negative View of Tea Party on the Rise
New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: August 5, 2011

The percentage of people with an unfavorable view of the Tea Party in a New York Times/CBS News Poll this week was higher than it has been since the first time the question was asked, in April 2010. Forty percent of those polled this week characterized their view as “not favorable,” compared with 18 percent in the first poll.

However, the Republican Party fared even worse, the poll found…

6. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress have handled the negotiations on the debt ceiling?
Approve – 21%
Disapprove – 72%
DK/NA – 7%

The poll also asked about what people thought about Speaker of the House Boehner

5. Do you approve or disapprove of the way John Boehner is handling his job as Speaker of the House of Representatives?
Approve – 30%
Disapprove – 57%
DK/NA – 13%

(The Democrats didn’t fare much better, their Approval/Disapproval rating was 28/66) The Times article reported on what  people thought about the debate in the House about the debit limit…

In the most recent poll, most Americans took a negative view of the debt-ceiling negotiations, seeing them as “mostly about gaining political advantage.” With Republicans in charge of the House, more of the blame fell on them. And many people — a 43 percent plurality — saw the Tea Party as having too much influence on Republicans.

Speaker Boehner was gloating over the fact that he won, that President Obama blinked first. That President Obama backed down from the tax hikes on the billionaires and millionaires and cutting tax loopholes. The New York Times and CBS poll asked,

12. Which do you think is better for the country? Should the Democrats and Republicans compromise some of their positions in order to get things done, or stick to their positions even if it means not getting as much done?
Compromise – 85%
Stick to positions – 12%
DK/NA – 3%

While House Speaker Boehner was gloating, Standard & Poor lowered the credit rating of the U.S. because of Congresses inability to work together and compromise. This is going to cost the country billions because of higher interest rates and result in the laying off of thousands of workers.

GLOBAL MARKETS-Dollar to drop on S&P move, flows seen to safe havens
Reuters
By Emelia Sithole-Matarise
Sun Aug 7, 2011

LONDON, Aug 7(Reuters) - The dollar may fall and Treasury yields rise on Monday in response to the United States losing its top-tier credit rating from Standard & Poor's but any selling is likely to be tempered by the euro zone's escalating debt crisis.

Equity markets' likely reaction was indicated by a drop of more than six percent on Sunday in Tel Aviv stocks, one of the first to open globally after S&P on Friday cut the U.S. long-term credit rating by a notch to AA-plus from AAA.

Investors will be all the more likely to withdraw to safe havens, such as the Swiss franc, the yen and gold, if euro zone officials cannot stem concern that their debt crisis risks engulfing Italy, the bloc's third largest economy, whose government bond yields have soared to 14-year highs.

So Mister Speaker, who won? Not the citizens of the United States, not the global economy. Neither the Republican Party nor the Tea Party, their approval rating plumbed because the American people saw it for what it was, political grandstanding. No one won Mr. Speaker… no one.

The Republicans and the Tea Party were elected to get us out of Bush’s depression, they have done everything else except create jobs. The have attacked women rights, they have attacked Planned Parenthood, they have attacked low income healthcare, and they have fought the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Now through their “Take No Prisoners” attitude on the budget, they have succeeded in lower the credit rating of the United States.

NYT-CBS News poll: Obama is doing okay. Congress? Not so much
Washington Post
By Jonathan Capehart
August 5, 2011

Ever since Obama walked through the doors of the Oval Office for the first time as president, he has been beset by one crisis after another that would sap his support or raise doubts about him and his leadership. There was the imploding economy in early 2009 and the actions taken to prevent another Depression; the politically debilitating health-care debate and the law that helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party and the loss of the House; the response to the gulf oil spill and the swine flu epidemic; the struggling economic recovery and frustration over the lack of jobs; the debt-ceiling fiasco; the delegitimizing birther nonsense that gained traction; and a Republican minority in the Senate and then a Republican majority in the House that see their sole purpose as thwarting anything that might be viewed as a success for the president, even if it might do right by the country.

Given all that, a 48 percent approval rating is damned impressive.