Growing accustomed to mediocrity

LARRY ANDERSON
Larry Anderson

You may agree political polls months before an election do little to call the eventual result, but polls that measure the mood and concerns of the public may be a different story.

It is the population, not the contenders, who will, and should, decide the country’s priorities.

A recent Wells Fargo/Ipsos poll revealed much about where Americans’ heads are. Those polled were given 13 categories concerning economic issues and asked to identify the three most important to them.

By far, Americans (44 percent) were most concerned about health care costs.

Stated the article reporting the poll: “The survey ranked high health care costs as the No. 1 obstacle to achieving respondents’ financial goals …with rising health care premiums and deductibles forcing … (workers) to pick up a growing share of the bill.”

Clearly, ObamaCare has done little to assuage Americans’ concerns over the destructive potential of illness on their financial well-being. When ObamaCare was rammed through on the backs of employers and workers, it was pitched as a middle class savings ($2,500 per family!) measure that would stabilize costs for all. Supporters of the bill said nothing about the exploding cost of deductibles and premiums.

The $2,500 savings was a lie of the straight face. The rise in premiums and deductibles were lies of omission by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

Hit especially hard by ObamaCare are the self-employed and retirees who pay their own premiums, but companies are also struggling to pay benefits. ObamaCare has driven up cost of living and damaged employment as companies seek other ways to make up the cost of insurance.

Those benefiting most from ObamaCare aren’t the ones paying deeply for it. There is a fairness issue too.

No Republican in Congress voted for ObamaCare. That is why it is a potent selling point for conservatives this election. That is also why HRC seldom mentions this political leper while lecturing us on social justice.

Economic recovery was the second most important concern measured by the poll (33 percent). “People are seeing more jobs,” Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner stated. “We just aren’t creating many good jobs. They don’t pay very well, and …don’t have benefits.”

Many new positions are part-time or freelance. Many people are underemployed; in other words, they have training and skills over and above what they need for the occupation they have.

Especially hard hit have been mid-level jobs. Most job growth has been either in the lower-paying service sector or in the higher skills fields such as computers, health care, finance and engineering. Jobs in-between have been lost at a crippling high rate.

Also, millions of production jobs have been sent to other countries with the support of a government with no plan to stop the flow or to bring employers back to where they originated.

Mexico has been the recipient of many of these jobs; in return our neighbor gives us illegal immigrants and a free flow of illicit drugs.

That is one reason many people are listening to Donald Trump. The Left is stumped by his popularity because Lefties’ are unaware of what’s truly important to regular folks.

Or, they know and don’t care.

Little difference really.

Twenty-six percent of participants identified balancing the federal budget as most important. People seem to be aware of what our government can’t understand: Rising debt due to deficit spending year after year is a threat to our economy and our future.

Even though our national debt has risen grotesquely the last seven years, we have not been able to spend ourselves into prosperity. Another 23 percent of respondents believe cutting spending is necessary to balance the budget.

Job creation came in fourth in the survey and goes hand-in-hand with economic recovery. Jobs are also falling to automation, compression, and an expanding list of regulations that keep companies off balance, in constant legal turmoil, and under the ever-watchful eye of an increasingly officious government. People know why they are getting laid off or are seeing their jobs outsourced.

Seniors are staying in the workforce longer because they can’t afford to come out or are fearful for the future. Therefore, young workers are having more trouble breaking into the marketplace.

This Obama/Clinton camp counters these problems with yap about social justice and the minimum wage.

These points are a distraction for their failure to confront Americans’ most pressing personal problems. Ahead is splendid mediocrity of the socialist sort.

I suggest everyone take a close look at what is going on in Venezuela, a socialist state, this very minute.

It is getting easier to relate.