Swing voters want their Social Security, Medicare and good government

A new survey of American suburban and swing voters by Hofstra University's National Center for Suburban Studies demonstrates just how mainstream the progressive vision for the country on the role of government really is. On issues of income inequality, the social contract, government regulation of industry for health and safety of the public, these swing voters demonstrate that, while they don't like these concepts in the abstract, they support the specific programs at issue, and want to keep them strong. This plays into the larger narrative that's at the heart of this campaign and the competing visions for what the role of government in our daily lives should be, and how Democrats and progressives should be presenting that vision.

The survey was designed and executed by Princeton, and was conducted in mid-June with telephone interviews in English and Spanish with 1,532 adults age 18 or older. It oversampled surburban voters, including 1,005 of them. At the core of this discussion, shaping all other opinions in it, is the fact that this is a group of Americans that has been hit particularly hard by the recession.

The personal experience with the economic carnage has not abated in the suburbs where more than seven in ten residents (73%) have lost their job or know someone who has, down a bit from 79 percent in 2011. Almost as many (68%) have seen layoffs or forced retirements at their workplace, just about the same as the 70 percent in 2011.

Experience with losing a home to foreclosure or because of skyrocketing mortgage payments has continued to rise. More than two in five suburbanites (43%) say they or someone they know has lost their home, up five percentage points since 2011.

That colors much of what this group of voters believes as you drill down into issues, and that's where you see complexity in these voters' beliefs. For example, 56 percent support "reducing personal income taxes on all Americans," but 60 percent also support "raising personal income taxes on wealthier Americans." When it comes to government spending, the same contradictions emerge.

More than seven in ten suburban residents (72%) say they favor cutting federal spending in general and only 21 percent oppose such trims. But ask about cutting defense spending and a majority is opposed, 34 percent to 56 percent. And almost no one wants to cut spending on Social Security and Medicare, two of the largest items in the federal budget. Only 10 percent of suburban residents support such cuts, while 87 percent oppose such moves.

Turning the issue around, there is majority support for increasing some government spending. Nearly two-thirds of suburban dwellers (65%) support increasing spending on roads, bridges, and other public works projects, while 30 percent oppose it. [emphasis added]

Here's the Democrats' huge opening. It comes to them courtesy Paul Ryan and complete Republican embrace'including from Mitt Romney'of his extreme budget, his extreme vision for America in which government disappears in everything but the military, and we all fend for ourselves. What the Ryan/Romney plan would do to Medicare has been well covered: Seniors would see their benefits drastically reduced and shrinking over time, until Medicare as it was created and as we know it would shrivel up and die.

But less discussed, since Ryan avoided directly addressing it in his budget, is what it would do to Social Security. Just because the cuts aren't spelled out in the budget doesn't mean they're not there, Social Security experts Nancy Altman, Eric Kingson and Benjamin W. Veghte explain.

What changes do Representative Ryan and his colleagues have in mind? In each of the past two years, Ryan has issued documents about the GOP's long-term budget plans. Neither has the force of law yet, but the preferred changes in Social Security are clear:

• Along the lines of a proposal former President George W. Bush unsuccessfully advocated in 2005, Ryan would move toward giving all Social Security beneficiaries a basic pension set at a low level and largely unrelated to each person's prior wages. Beyond that, people would have to fend for themselves, supplementing their modest benefits from savings or paid work.
• Ryan praises the idea of increasing Social Security's early and normal retirement ages to ages 64 and 69 respectively'and he would also further lift these ages in the future based on how much longer an average American lives. [...] A 'retirement age' of 69 translates into approximately a 13% cut for everyone, even for workers who work until age 70 or beyond (and that cut would be in addition to the 13 percent cut that all Americans younger than 52 will experience because the retirement age is already scheduled to move to age 67 for them).

Remember the recent focus group by Priorities USA, the Super PAC supporting President Obama? When they were informed about what the Romney-endorsed Ryan budget would do to Medicare, the focus group participants flatly refused to believe that any politician would be stupid enough to sign on to that plan.

Here's the first thing Democrats need to do. They need to make sure that voters everywhere'urban, suburban, rural'know that Mitt Romney and all the Republicans are just that stupid, that they are just the extreme, that they absolutely intend to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare, and that they mean to do it so that they can keep taxes on the richest Americans low.

Here's the second thing Democrats need to do. They need to defend these programs at least as strenuously as they are defending extending the middle class tax cuts. That means ending any and all threats from Democrats about sacrificing these essential programs to the austerity hysteria (I'm looking directly at you, Rep. Rob Andrews). That means taking a strong and solemn vow now, before any votes are cast on Nov. 6, to hold Social Security and Medicare benefits safe from any "grand bargain" in the lame-duck session.

Voters aren't going to think Democrats are being irresponsible spendthrifts, they're going to think Democrats are living up to all their talk about standing up for the little guy, about caring first and foremost about middle-class America. Just do it, Democrats, protect these programs and tax the rich to do it. It's not just a popular policy to follow, it's the responsible one.