Debt Debate: Independents Say Wealthy and Corporations Should Share Tax Load

DEBT DEBATE

• Polls: Should any debt ceiling agreement include tax increases? (By: CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser) As expected, there's a partisan divide on that question, with Democrats by an 87 to 7 percent margin and independents by at 66 to 26 percent margin saying that tax increases for the wealthy and corporations should be included. But by 48 to 43 percent plurality, Republicans disagree that taxes should be included.
• Debt talks yield little more than partisan positioning for 2012 (By Lesley Clark and David Lightman, Sac Bee) Polls show that independent voters are concerned about the country's mounting debt, and unlike Republican lawmakers, aren't opposed to taxing the wealthy or closing corporate tax loopholes to do something about it, Miringoff said. "The reason we're seeing a lot of President Obama, more than ever before, is he really has public opinion on his side," Miringoff said.
• Liberal group threatens to pull Obama support (AP) About a dozen people representing the Progressive Change Campaign Committee delivered what they said were 200,000 pledges from people who will refuse to donate or volunteer for Obama's re-election campaign if he cuts the entitlement programs. "It's not a question of who they're going to support for president, they're going to vote for Barack Obama. It's a question of where their time and money is going to go," spokesman T. Neil Sroka said.
• Why is Obama taking fire from left? (By CARL P. LEUBSDORF, The Dallas Morning News in Nashua Telegraph) And while his job approval has dropped 20 points from post-inaugural highs, that mostly occurred among Republicans and independents who didn’t vote for him. Still, friendly fire attacks persist, even though Obama is presiding over the most liberal administration since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s.