The refrain is familiar from pundits: the public at large are a bunch of fools and rubes because we want to reduce the debt and deficit but don’t want tax increases or cuts to entitlements. Two recent posts at Instapundit have me wondering just how true this professional opinion is.
First, we have a post from this morning which leads us to a study showing that given the raw data, most Americans can cut the deficit dramatically with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
Second, there was another post over the weekend where, prompted by an emailed, he speculates why totalitarian regimes tend to collapse so quickly. In a nutshell, he theorizes that in such regimes the people are all secretly against the government because it serves their short-term interest of not getting killed, beaten, thrown in jail, or some miserable combination of the three. The regime spends an enormous amount of energy convincing everyone that everyone else loves the regime. In other words, the regime remains in power because of a brutal con game. Once the people start to realize that everyone else really doesn’t like the people in power, the effect is overwhelming and such regimes seem to collapse overnight.
I wonder if a similar effect might not be brewing regarding the public and our spending. We’ve been told for years that none of us really want to cut entitlements. The support for this always comes in the form of a poll about what the public wants to cut, and it always shows that no one really wants to cut anything, except foreign aid.
But what if the polls aren’t really asking the right questions? I think it raises the distinct possibility that the prevailing professional opinion is incorrect. That, in fact, the only reason it exists is because of an unintended consequence of the constant polling data and the professional interpretation thereof. It’s a feedback loop: everyone hears that no one else is serious therefore, because most of us are busy with the business of our lives rather than politics and polls, no one does take it seriously.
In my scenario, the prevailing, but secret, attitude is one where people do want to make the necessary changes to solve the problem, but no realizes everyone else is onboard. So what’s necessary is a “piercing of the veil,” raising the simple question: “How?” There, I don’t have much to offer. Broadly speaking, we all have to become aware of everyone else’s willingness to work it out. Perhaps through more studies or polls structured like the one in the above link. Perhaps through more politicians putting forward serious proposals that allow us to see that certain things are favored.
If I’m correct, then I’d expect opinion to coalesce around a solution rather quickly and dramatically. If I’m incorrect then, well, no big deal. It was just a thought.