New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues that “Republicans have decisively lost the battle of ideas” given that “their major policy moves, on health care, taxes and tariffs, are playing badly with voters.”
Krugman points to polling that finds that public approval of Obamacare is high, with many voters now saying that the law didn’t go far enough, while support for the GOP tax cuts and President Trump’s tariffs is low.
The real question, he says, is why Republican policy ideas were ever popular — and the answer, he suggests, is that “voters didn’t see the connections” in the past:
“When [President George W.] Bush pushed through his tax cut, we had a budget surplus, so it wasn’t clear to voters that less revenue might mean cuts to programs they count on. When you push through big tax cuts in the face of a budget deficit — and when your own party has spent years warning about imminent fiscal doom and demanding spending cuts — the implications are more obvious.”
