Ballance in a Cold Climate


Amy Gardner reports on Ohio Governor John Kasich's budget proposal. This is a challenge, since Ohioans seem to have unballanced views of Kasich -- a recent poll suggested he would lose a rematch election by 15%.

In fact, Gardner doesn't quote any Ohioan who has anything good to say about Kasich's proposal except for Kasich. But she is a Washington Post reporter so she just won't give up. There are two sides to every question. If the unballanced Ohioans just won't give the right answers, she knows who to ask

Frank Luntz

I kid you not. He is asked to interpret the public mood

“You have a public opinion that I think is at best chaotic,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and message-crafter. “It’s this really dangerous cocktail of cynicism and immediacy. They recognize there’s a crisis out there, and they want politicians to solve it. But they don't like any of the solutions.”

I think I might just have to retire Ballance at the Washington Post. It's going to be hard to top this.

By the way the chaos in a national poll is a very clear kind of chaos

Fewer than four in 10 of those surveyed would support reduced spending on roads and infrastructure, increases in state income or sales taxes, or layoffs of state employees. Only about two in 10 would support cuts to Medicaid, closing or limiting access to parks and recreation areas, or reducing aid to public schools. And there is virtually no support for laying off teachers, police officers or firefighters.

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There is, however, wider support for limiting pay and benefits for state workers. Fifty-five percent of survey respondents support freezing wages for state employees, and 51 percent back reducing pension benefits for new state workers.

Kasich proposes to "reduce overall spending on Ohio public schools by more than $3 billion over two years." It seems to me that the poll results are catastrophic for Republicans not chaotic.

I would like to see the result of polling on a proposal to increase state income taxes only on family incomes over $ 250,000 per year.