Since the stimulus package, Americans have seemed to understand that it is better to ride out a recession than to pour out what little is left in the federal purse. Unfortunately, they continue to refuse to accept, to fix the hole Presidents Bubama (as in, Bush & Obama) have torn in the budget, that they will have to take some combination of spending cuts and tax raises.
A new CBS News/New York Times poll shows 53%-31% refusing to take cuts in services (that number increases to 42% if you let them only cut "a few things"), with 56%-41% opposing tax hikes.
The good news, politically, is that people are (slightly) less willing to accept an increase in taxes than they are to letting go of some domestic/economic aid. That will help Republicans in 2010, and especially 2012, when the President is forced to make some tough choices.
Unfortunately, this crisis is not about politics. It is about an American government that is threatening to lose all sense of fiscal reality and fall into a debt trap that would ensnare every citizen, and probably the entire world. The next Republican leader will hopefully be the one who can combine conservative austerity measures with the Roosevelt-Kennedy skill at rallying the country behind a necessary cause. And he is probably going to have to raise taxes too. It is impossible to know who that is (David Petraeus, if he chose to enter politics, comes to mind), but for the sake of everyone, pray they're out there.
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