Libertarian Party blog: Voter opposition to Obama $1.2 trillion spending plan grows

By paulie on February 5, 2009 4:12 PM

More bad news for the Obama administration. Support for his $1.2 trillion government expansion plan continues to plummet, with a plurality of voters now opposing it.

Even worse for Obama, half of all voters now say his plan will do more to hurt the economy than help it and Americans are more worried the government will do too much than do too little.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds only 37 percent of voters still support the plan. A whopping 43 percent oppose the Obama plan. Twenty percent are not sure.

Most troubling for Obama is where the growing opposition is coming from — the independent voters who elected him and whose support he needs to pass other legislation. Only 27 percent of unaffiliated voters back Obama’s "stimulus" plan. Fifty percent oppose it.

That continues a downward spiral for the $1.2 trillion package of wealth transfers and increased government spending. Two weeks ago 45 percent of voters supported the plan, which dropped to 42 percent last week and now just 37 percent this week.

Opposition grew from 34 percent two weeks ago, to 39 percent last week and is now up to 43 percent today and still growing.

Fifty percent voters now feel the "stimulus" plan will do more to hurt the economy than help it. Only 39 percent disagree. Forty-six percent are worried the government will do too much, only 41 percent feel it may do too little.

A stimulus plan that includes only tax cuts — a plan backed only by Libertarians — is now more popular than the economic recovery plan being considered in Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats are calling for increased government spending, but they disagree on which party’s supporters should get the pork.

Forty-five percent favor a tax-cut only plan while 34 percent are opposed. That’s an increase in support for tax cuts-only from last week. Fifty-nine percent of voters are concerned government will raise spending too much.

Overall, 57 percent of voters say tax cuts will do more to improve the economy than bigger spending, including 60 percent of independent voters. In fact, Rasmussen finds 44 percent of voters now say they’d vote for a candidate who opposed all tax increases rather than one who promised to raise taxes only on the rich.

Posted at LP.org by Donny Ferguson. Reposted to IPR by Paulie.

paulie

12 Comments

paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
Rockwell spews hate, and I’m all about love, so while I recognize he’s an L, too, I definitely distance myself from him and how he “thinks.”
Interestingly, Rockwell still to this day has not retracted his King-deserved-it insanity. He obviously doesn’t understand the notion of “to err is human, to forgive divine.” Perhaps he’s too wrapped up in his ego.
Pity.
I certainly disagree with the strategy of a paleolibertarian-paleoconservative alliance with the racist far right, embracing the George Wallace movement’s approach to social tensions between the “races,” the embrace of a fictionally sanitized 1950s view of sexual morality and family relations, etc. Much embarrassing material, including Rockwell’s Rodney King article and the Ron Paul newsletters, emerged from this.
This doesn’t cause me to throw out the many good things published at Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, including by Rockwell himself, and certainly by writers such as Roderick Long who never embraced the “paleo” strategy.
paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism#Radical_free-marketeers
Mutualism emerged from early 19th-century socialism, and is generally considered a market-oriented part of the libertarian socialist tradition. Mutualists generally accept property rights, but with a short abandonment time period. In other words, a person must make (more or less) continuous use of the item or else he loses ownership rights. This is usually referred to as “possession property” or “usufruct.” Thus, in this usufruct system, absentee ownership is illegitimate, and workers own the machines they work with.
Mutualism has reemerged more recently, incorporating modern economic ideas such as marginal utility theory. Kevin A. Carson’s book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
was influential in this regard, updating the labor theory of value with Austrian economics. Agorism, an anarchist tendency founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III, advocates counter-economics, working in untaxed black or grey markets, and boycotting as much as possible the unfree taxed market with the intended result that private voluntary institutions emerge and outcompete statist ones. Geoanarchism, an anarchist form of Henry George’s philosophy, is considered left-libertarian because it assumes land to be initially owned in common, so that when land is privately appropriated the proprietor pays rent to the community. These philosophies share similar concerns and are collectively known as left-libertarianism.
Rapprochement with the Left
The first attempt at rapprochement between the postwar American libertarian movement and the Left came in the 1960s, when Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard came to question libertarianism’s traditional alliance with the Right in light of the Vietnam War. During this period, Rothbard came to advocate strategic alliances with the New Left over issues such as the military draft and black power.
Karl Hess
Working with radicals like Ronald Radosh, Rothbard argued that the consensus view of American economic history, wherein government has stepped in as a countervailing interest to corporate predation, is fundamentally flawed. Rather, he argued, government intervention in the economy has largely benefited established players at the expense of marginalized groups, to the detriment of both liberty and equality. Moreover, the “Robber Baron Period”, adulated by the right and despised by the left as a laissez-faire haven, was not laissez-faire at all but in fact a time of massive state privilege accorded to capital. Rothbard criticized the “frenzied nihilism” of left-libertarians but also criticized right-wing libertarians who were content to rely only on education to bring down the state; he believed that libertarians should adopt any non-immoral tactic available to them in order bring about liberty.[18]
Rothbard’s initial leftward impulse was maintained by Karl Hess, picked up by activists like Samuel Edward Konkin III and Roderick Long. These left-libertarians agree with Rothbard that presently-existing capitalism does not even vaguely resemble a free market, and that most presently-existing corporations are the beneficiaries and chief supporters of statism. By this line of reasoning, libertarianism should make common cause with the anti-corporate left. Rapprochement with the left has led many left-libertarians to reject some traditional right-libertarian stances, such as hostility to labor unions and support for intellectual property, or even to limit valid real-property rights to use-and-occupancy.
Cultural politics
Contemporary left-libertarians also show markedly more sympathy than mainstream or paleo-libertarians towards various cultural movements which challenge non-governmental relations of power. For instance, left-libertarians Roderick Long and Charles Johnson have called for a recovery of the nineteenth-century alliance between radical liberalism and feminism.[19] Left-libertarians are more likely to take recognizably leftist stances on issues as diverse as feminism, gender and sexuality, sexual freedom, drug policy, race, class, immigration, environmentalism, gun rights, and foreign policy. Current writers who have significantly impacted or explored this aspect of left-libertarianism include Chris Sciabarra, Roderick Long, Charles Johnson, Kevin Carson, and Arthur Silber.
Robert Capozzi February 5, 2009
PC: Gun to my head, of course I choose Long over Rockwell. Rockwell spews hate, and I’m all about love, so while I recognize he’s an L, too, I definitely distance myself from him and how he “thinks.”
Interestingly, Rockwell still to this day has not retracted his King-deserved-it insanity. He obviously doesn’t understand the notion of “to err is human, to forgive divine.” Perhaps he’s too wrapped up in his ego.
Pity.
paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_political_alliances
Friedrich Hayek’s arguments in Why I am not a Conservative preempted the paleolibertarian movement. He argued that, while libertarians (whom he called “liberals”) could ally with conservatives in the short term, any fusion of the two movements would undermine their ability to defend liberty. Hayek’s essay argues that alliances with conservatives are at best a necessary evil in the fight against socialism, noting that there are deep incompatibilities because “the admiration of the conservatives for free growth generally applies only to the past. They typically lack the courage to welcome the same undesigned change from which new tools of human endeavors will emerge.”
paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Left-libertarianism

Some members of the U.S. libertarian movement, including the late Samuel Edward Konkin III[66] and Roderick T. Long,[67] employ a differing definition of left libertarianism. These individuals depart from other forms of libertarianism by opposing intellectual property,[68] by advocating strong alliances with the Left on issues such as the anti-war movement,[69] and by supporting labor unions.[70][71] Some wish to revive voluntary cooperative ideas such as mutualism.[72]
paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
Mises.org is just the publisher.
The speech is by Roderick Long
http://praxeology.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Long
I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already. One of my all-time favorite articles.
As for Rockwell: very good on peace issues, and on civil liberties issues related to the “war on terror” and (usually) on civil liberties issues related to the war on drugs. Also very good on economic issues.
Not so good on some social issues, but Roderick Long parts company with him on those.
Robert Capozzi February 5, 2009
Paulie, I agree, although linking to Mises.Org seems hurts your case. The president of that institution was a-OK with the Rodney King beating, which feels awfully “right” to me.
paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
Libertarians, Conservatives, Patriots and Republicans will seize a veto-proof majority in Congress in 2010, we will all have tax cuts galore, and everyone (except liberals, Democrats, welfare queens and illegal aliens) will live happliy ever after

We really should stop classifying libertarianism as part of the right.
http://mises.org/story/2099
http://bradspangler.com/blog/archives/283
paulie cannoli Post author | February 5, 2009
Sam,
Tax credits: the tax code is complicated enough. How about scrapping it and giving working people a break instead?
As for your claim, “Add a made in American requirement and you have a hot plan and NO AMERICAN WILL DISAGREE” – so, you think that all Americans have a group mind, which is economically illiterate? Or that people who have studied economics and history, and understand that protectionism is detrimental to the country as well as the world, are not “true Americans”?
Robert Capozzi February 5, 2009
Leymann, maybe. This could all lead to blowback on Obama and the Ds. Or maybe he’s FDR, selling more failure for more failure.
Sam Elam February 5, 2009
Why aren’t we encouraging more consumer & business spending to stimulate our economy and create Jobs?
Car purchases = 3000.00 tax Credit for new cars > 20mpg
New home buyers = 10,000.00 tax deduction the 1st year.
Energy Saving Home Improvements = 33% tax deduction (wind solar, geothermal)
Energy Saving Appliance purchases = 20% tax deduction (Energy Star Qualified)
Add a made in American requirement and you have a hot plan and
NO AMERICAN WILL DISAGREE
Leymann Feldenstein February 5, 2009
The LP should be happy. If the plan passes and fails or, better yet, if the plan passes and works but voters are so upset as the LP implies, then Libertarians, Conservatives, Patriots and Republicans will seize a veto-proof majority in Congress in 2010, we will all have tax cuts galore, and everyone (except liberals, Democrats, welfare queens and illegal aliens) will live happliy ever after.
The End.

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