On yesterday's The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger spoke with host Suzanne Malveaux about polling done on ObamaCare:
MALVEAUX: Gloria, I want to start off with you.
One thing that the polls were showing is that most Americans, they support this idea of this public option, but they also believe that the president wants the government to take over the health care system.
Well, how does that -- how do you make sense of that?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, in fact, 53 percent believe that Obama wants to take over the health care system, and 42 percent say no. And I think what this shows is that the Republican PR about President Obama being big government, big deficit, big spender, has really taken hold over the congressional recess. People believe that he wants big government.
What Borger is missing here is that the principal reason Americans view Obama as a big government, big deficit, big spending liberal is because he is. "Republican PR" might emphasize that simple truth, but the facts speak for themselves and many Americans would have arrived at the same conclusion regardless.
Last month, The Heritage Foundation's Brian M. Riedl reviewed some updated statistics from Obama's own administration:
The Office of Management and Budget has released its annual mid-session review that updates the budget projections from this past May. They show that this year, Washington will spend $30,958 per household, tax $17,576 per household, and borrow $13,392 per household. The federal government will increase spending 22 percent this year to a peacetime-record 26 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). This spending is not just temporary: President Obama would permanently keep annual spending between $5,000 and $8,000 per household higher than it had been under President George W. Bush.
Admittedly, most citizens don't know those precise numbers. At the same time, as they see Obama's heavy hand of government interference intruding more and more into our daily lives, as they see budget projections that even a year ago were unimaginable, as they come to a realization that there aren't enough "rich" people to fund more socialist schemes, they see Obama for what he is.
That doesn't require Republican PR. Is they weren't so biased, even the mainstream media could figure it out.
