The House of Representatives is supposed to be the "peoples' house," but this one doesn't even come close to representing the people on spending and taxes.
By the large, and contrary to majority opinion in the House, the people don't see the deficit as all that big a deal. They think Medicare is just fine the way it is, and Medicaid too. Putting their good old fashioned American horse sense to use, they figure that if you need more money, get a few bucks from the people who have it.
That's according to the Washington Post poll, which showed that even a majority of Republicans think taxing the wealthy made sense. Even significant minorities of the very wealthy are in favor of taxing themselves! Civic-mindedness is not completely dead.
The resistance, while a minority, is furiously trying to avoid the one option for dealing with the deficit that makes sense, which is raising taxes on those who can afford it--if the deficit is the big deal they say it is, which is a very big "if". In fact, all we need to do is go back to Clinton-era tax rates and the so-called "deficit problem" is pretty much solved within five years.
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