Poll finds support for Elizabeth Warren’s “balanced approach”

[DonViejo]

As liberals fight for her fiscal cliff solution, a new poll shows Americans are open to it

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

The progressive movement is feeling more confident than it has in years and is flexing its muscles in the fiscal cliff flight to put pressure on Democrats not to cave on the tax increases for the wealthy or on cuts to social safety net programs. So far, the Democratic establishment seems to have listened. President Obama, unlike in his negotiations with Republicans last year, is drawing a hard line on the tax hikes and is forcing Republicans to make the first move on entitlement reform.

And yesterday, progressives scored another huge victory with the confirmation that Massachusetts Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren will get a spot on the Senate Banking Committee, where she can carry on the work that has made her a liberal hero of fighting Wall Street accountable. Given Warren’s star power, the progressive activists who fuel her campaign see her as a leader in Washington whose influence extends far beyond her single vote in the Senate. Many are rallying around her vision of a “balanced approach” to reducing the deficit, which is notch or two to the left of Obama’s.

Beyond tax increases for the wealthy, she has called for the elimination of many agriculture and oil subsidies, cuts to defense, and the end to the war in Afghanistan (which costs about $2 billion a week) while leaving Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security untouched.

When Warren laid out the appraoch during a debate with departing Sen. Scott Brown during the campaign, it instantly entered the progressive cannon. “If this is what Democrats define as a ‘balanced approach’ I’m all for it,” prominent liberal blogger digby wrote of Warren’s vision. Soon, groups like Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a key outside group involved in Warren’s election, began using it in fundraising solicitations and other liberal candidates echoed the idea.

-snip-

more:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/13/poll_finds_support_for_elizabeth_warrens_balanced_approach/

[SugarShack]

1. Go LIZ!!!!!

[Mass]

2. Go Dems. She did not invent this approach. Other Dems started it before her.

[CTyankee]

3. It's good all around. First, I love the idea of putting those big ag and oil subsidies out there

as welfare for the rich and letting repubs defend them out in the open. And it gets the war in Afghanistan the attention it deserves in addition to being unpopular with the American public, ditto cuts to defense. It re-sets the table and we get to highlight some sorely needed issues in the context of the deficit debate.