Category: Our Work

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The Value Of America’s Alliances

Last week was NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) week in Washington, as the alliance celebrated its 75th anniversary and welcomed the soon-to-be new Secretary General, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Alliances are receiving a heightened level of attention as they relate to the conflict in Ukraine. Former President Trump and others have indicated they are open to changes with our alliances and pressing allies to pay more for security. From our research for Winning the Issues (June 14-16, 1000 registered voters), we explored foreign policy topics and how voters perceive the value of our alliances.

Conflicting beliefs in foreign policy: Seven out of ten voters believe that peace, prosperity and security are products of American leadership and sacrifice (70-16 believe-do not believe) with this belief consistent across party (75-14 among Republicans, 65-20 among independents, 70-15 among Democrats). However, there is also concern that the US has become overstretched. Two- thirds of the electorate believes that the US is overstretched with funding and providing military weapons assistance for international conflicts. We must focus on rebuilding our country (63-21). Republicans (72-14) and conservative Republicans believe this (75-14) at a high level, but this is also the case among independents (63-20) and Democrats (53-28).

With majorities of the electorate believing both statements, this outlook indicates a conflict of foreign policy beliefs. For example, 60% of conservative Republicans believe both statements — that peace, prosperity and security are products of American leadership and sacrifice (79% believing) and that the US is overstretched (75% believing).

Importance of alliances: Alliances are seen as important (91-6 important-not important) but with a generational difference among Republicans on the scale of importance. Republicans over age 45 view the alliances that the US has with other countries as being very important (64%) rather than somewhat important (27%), while among Republicans 18-44, there is a much a larger percentage viewing them as only somewhat important (42%) rather than very important (49%).

Alliances as effective peace-keepers: Although alliances are seen as important, their value as effective peace-keepers is less clear. A majority of the country (54%) believes alliances like NATO have kept the peace since World War II (54-27 believe-do not believe). On this question, conservative Republicans are split 41-41, with Republicans overall (45-37) tending to believe this but with belief less than 50%. In contrast, Democrats (67-17) believe this more than Republicans (45-37) and independents (50-29).

NATO has helped keep the peace since World War II, but this current belief system indicates that it is time for a redefinition of the value proposition of our global alliances in the modern context.

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Roll Call: The Political System Is Blinking Red

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the state of political discourse and rhetoric in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The political discourse in this country has been driven by a focus on anger and grievance as a means to get and sustain attention and “eyeballs.” This focus has become the central element of political campaigns, and the media has adopted it as well. The impact of constant negative speech and negative news coverage is reflected in the country’s attitude toward the direction of the country. 

In the Real Clear Politics average, you have to go back to 2009 to even find parity between voters who thought the country was headed in the right direction and those who thought it was on the wrong track. That is a decade and a half. Today, the RCP average is 23 percent right direction and 67 percent wrong track. 

Read the full piece here.

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Roll Call: The state of Joe Biden: Hope isn’t a strategy

The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the impacts of Joe Biden’s June 27 debate performance:

[T]he public is still processing what they saw, which contradicted what the White House and many Democrats have been asserting for months. The president is fine, they’ve been telling us. Move along. Nothing to see here. 

But their efforts to make the race all about Trump have clearly been compromised, with Biden’s poor performance now becoming a major factor in the political equation. Voters are just beginning to work through how this will impact their ballot preference. 

Read the full piece here.

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Deficit Claims From The Presidential Debate

Democrats are in full-scale panic after last week’s disastrous debate. Subsequent coverage has focused on the President’s performance, but today we are addressing one of the debate statements about the deficit.

In the debate, President Biden said: “He [Trump] had the largest national debt of any president in a four-your period, number one.” At the Office of Management and Budget’s historical tables page on the White House website, there is a file (table 1.1) that looks at the summary of receipts, outlays, and surpluses or deficits (-) from 1789 through 2029 (estimate). The OMB data shows a different picture. In Trump’s four years, the federal budget added 5.56 trillion dollars to the deficit. In Biden’s first three years, his budgets added 5.84 trillion.

Receipts in Biden’s first three years matched Trump’s four years, and the same comparison was true for spending. While Trump spent over 6 trillion dollars in 2020 to deal with COVID, each of the three prior years were under 4.5 trillion.

The difference between the two has been that Biden has normalized the COVID level of spending. In 2022 and 2023, he spent over 6 trillion, and the OMB estimate for 2024 increases to almost 7 trillion (6.9). In the projected four-year period estimated by OMB, President Biden’s federal budget deficits would reach 7.70 trillion dollars, which would be 2.14 trillion dollars larger than the four-year total for Trump’s presidency.

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Do Voters Connect Academic Subjects With Real World Skills?

One issue that has been of interest to us is connecting academic subjects with the concrete, usable skills they impart. To what extent do voters connect academic subjects with the real-world skills that students will need as adults?

To begin to answer this question, we asked voters two questions on our latest survey for Winning the Issues (June 14-16). First, how important is it for students graduating high school to understand variables and equations? Then, how important is it for students graduating high school to understand how a mortgage works, including what the monthly payments would be and how long it would take to pay it off? Understanding variables and equations, the foundation of algebra, is arguably foundational for being able to understand the mechanisms of taking out and repaying a loan for a house.

As shown in the table below, majorities of voters said both would be important, but with a gap between the importance of understanding variables/equations (79-18 important-not important) and the importance of understanding a mortgage (92-6). This was similar among parents (78-19 for understanding variables/equations; 93-5 for understanding a mortgage).

The difference in perceived importance is even greater when looking only at those who called each “very important.” Overall, 41% of voters said understanding variables and equations was very important. In contrast, two-thirds (67%) said understanding how a mortgage was very important, a difference of 26 points. The margin was only a little narrower among parents (18 points), with 46% saying that understanding variable/equations was very important and 64% saying that understanding a mortgage was very important.

While understanding both algebra and a mortgage are seen as important, voters clearly place more emphasis on the mortgage, demonstrating the disconnect between the academic subjects typically taught at school and the types of “real-world” skills parents typically say they want for their kids. Last week, we highlighted the recent NPR/Ipsos survey, showing that 40% of parents were concerned about students being prepared for the future. While there are many ways K-12 education could (and should) address this concern, a good first step might be to more closely demonstrate the links between what students are already expected to know when they graduate and the skills they will need as adults.

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What Makes Parents Worry About K-12 Eduction?

Previously, we have taken a look at the issue of chronic absenteeism, specifically a study that indicated parents both underestimate their child’s absences and are not all that concerned about the issue either. New data from a recent NPR/Ipsos survey reinforces this conclusion, but it also sheds light on what parents say they are concerned about.

Chronic absenteeism falls low on the list of potential concerns, coming in last (excluding “other”), with 5% of parents reporting being concerned. Other issues liked standardized tests (#11, 9% concerned) and learning loss (#8, 14% concerned) also fell lower in the list of priorities.

What are parents worried about? The top two concerns were bullying (39% concerned) and young people not being prepared for the future (40% concerned). The latter concern is especially shared by those who are not parents. Some 43% of US adults also said that they were concerned about the ability of our K-12 education system to prepare students for the future.

This is a concern that many have shared for some time, though it seems to be growing for parents. Data from a November 2021 survey for Winning the Issues showed only a bare majority of voters overall (52%) were confident in the ability of the US education system to prepare students for the future (52-42 confident-not confident). Parents, however, were more confident (64-32), in contrast to the 40% presently saying this is a concern.

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The Cost Of Student Loan Forgiveness In Context

At the end of last month, President Biden announced the latest round of student loan debt cancellation, wiping out $7.7 billion in loans for some 160,000 people. Combined with the other, more targeted student debt cancellation measures Biden has pursued as a piecemeal alternative to the mass cancellation the Supreme Court struck down last year, President Biden has now canceled around $167 billion worth of loans.

To put that number in context, we again took a look at that total cost in the context of funding for other agencies as we did last year for the mass cancellation. For the current purposes, we use the 2024 estimated budget authority for various agencies from the OMB Historical Tables (see table 5.2: Budget Authority by Agency: 1976-2029). So far, the cost of piecemeal student loan forgiveness exceeds the estimated 2024 budget authority for the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Justice, and State combined.

To check our work, we performed the same exercise looking at the estimated outlays for 2024 (see table 4.1: Outlays by Agency, 1962-2029). The conclusion was nearly the same. The cost of Biden’s student loan cancellation to date virtually matches the estimated outlays of the same four agencies combined.

In other words, the cost of loan cancellation to date would have funded four different agencies for this fiscal year. President Biden may not have been able to pursue loan cancellation as he originally envisioned, but the cost of doing so still meets or exceeds the cost of running multiple agencies.

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Biden Underperforms Senate Candidates

Democrats are in full scale panic as polling nationally and in battleground states show the President in trouble, and in several cases, underperforming Congressional candidates. A new Wall Street Journal analysis shows Biden underperforming Senate candidates by 9 points. According to the WSJ, “What’s the opposite of presidential coattails? Presidential ankle weights? Whatever you call them, Joe Biden has them.”

This presidential underperformance of the Congressional level results from the negative image he has in contrast to his positive image in 2020. In 2020, Biden outperformed Congressional Democrats, while Trump underperformed at the Congressional level, resulting in Republicans picking up seats in the House despite a Trump loss. As shown in the chart, a few points difference between the presidential and Congressional levels made a significant impact in the election outcome.

  • Of several key voter groups, the most significant difference was among Hispanic voters with Biden winning by 33 but House Democrats only winning by 27.
  • Another notable difference was among college graduates (42% of the electorate) with Biden winning by a 12-point margin but House Democrats only winning by 7 — a 5-point difference between the presidential and House levels.
  • Among independents, Biden won by 13, but House Democrats only won by 9.
  • Among seniors, there was a 3-point difference between the presidential and House level, and a 1-point difference among women.

Biden’s slippage from 2020 to the present is most noticeable in his brand image, with every voter group in the chart shifting from positive to negative, especially among independents going from 51-45 fav-unfav in 2020 to 29-67 in most recent Winning the Issues survey.

Unlike the last Biden-Trump rematch, Democrats will have to adjust to the new campaign environment as their nominee creates a headwind rather than a tailwind at the Congressional level.

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Weekly Wages Lag Inflation 5.5%

The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that inflation has gone up 3.3% compared to this time last year, bringing the cumulative rate of inflation under President Biden since his inauguration – his Presidential Inflation Rate (PIR) – to 20.1%. But how does this compare to weekly wages?

Wages have increased 14.6% since President Biden’s inauguration, an increase but not as much as the rise in prices. Currently, wages trail the PIR by 5.5%.

This means that the purchasing power for the average family has decreased 5.5% since President Biden took office.

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Biden Presidential Inflation Rate (PIR) Better Only Than Jimmy Carter’s

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show prices rose 3.3% in May 2024 compared to May 2023, bringing the cumulative rate of price increases since President Biden first took office (the Presidential Inflation Rate) to 20.1%. This is the first time that Biden’s PIR has been greater than 20%.

But how does Biden compare to his predecessors?

The chart below shows the Presidential Inflation rates for Biden and the seven previous presidents at the same point in their terms (May of their fourth year). Only Jimmy Carter has a higher rate of inflation (39.8%) than Biden.