Are People Starting to Wake Up?

In recent weeks Obama's approval rating has started to slide down. Polls taken from multiple news agencies have showed the same trend. If you listen to the liberal media though, you'd think we were seeing the greatest economic output in U.S. history, and if you listen to Chris Matthews...well, anyone who listens to him needs their head examined. Are people starting to finally wake up a little and ignore the narrative of the liberal media? Perhaps...but only slightly based on the numbers from the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

Story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-approval-drops-as-americans-take-a-dimmer-view-of-his-economic-policies/2013/03/12/4ddfd240-8a79-11e2-a051-6810d606108d_story.html

Obama's overall approval rating is down to 50%, but considering over 12 million people remain unemployed altogether, another 8 million are stuck working only part-time, and nearly 7 million people have given up looking completely, this number should be much lower. Obama continues to hold relatively good numbers because even after four years of liberal policies with little improvement, the majority of people still blame Republicans for the economy.

There does seem to be a little hope for people yet though. When it comes to who people trust most to handle the economy, Obama's numbers are plummeting. In December, he held an 18 point advantage over Republicans; now it's only 4, 44 to 40. More importantly, the numbers among his core supporters are even beginning to slide. Since December, the number of liberals who trust Obama more than Republicans to handle the economy has fallen 14% including a 12% drop among women, one of his strongest support groups.

As I said though, people are only slightly starting to wake up. We're now two weeks out from sequestration, the $85 billion in automatic spending "cuts", and the majority of people hold Republicans responsible despite the fact sequestration was Obama's idea to begin with; 47% blame Republicans in Congress to only 33% who blame Obama. Similarly, people still have a more favorable view of Congressional Democrats, 34%, than Congressional Republicans, 24%. However, both parties continue to hold unprecedented unfavorable numbers.

Possibly the most frustrating numbers from this poll are the ones involving spending cuts. The majority of people are fed up with debt and deficits, but when it comes to cutting spending they reject cuts from the programs driving the deficits and debt. Seventy-one percent reject cutting Medicaid and 60% oppose raising the eligibility age for Medicare.

People do seem to be waking up slightly to the idea that Obama is doing a terrible job with the economy and that our debt and deficits are becoming a major problem, but they are still extremely reluctant to advocate for the tough choices needed to fix these problems. Once people become dependent on government programs like Medicaid, it is nearly impossible to get them to agree to reductions in these programs and ultimately it will take a total collapse before they fully wake up and even then some still won't get it...