For example, congressional leaders met for the first time in days to figure out the plan of attack last Wednesday. This meeting was supposed to come with not only a solution, but a plan of prevention to ensure this shutdown is unlikely to occur again. But, when House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, sat down for this much anticipated, intense meeting, nothing promising emerged. This was just the first of many empty promises the people were fed by the government. Several polls conducted by NPR and CNN say that this was the initial downfall of the population's belief with Obamacare.
"Reps. Pelosi and Hoyer asked for the meeting, and as we've stated publicly, we're willing to meet with any Democratic leader who is willing to talk," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
Although the shutdown continued after the meeting, Boehner took to the House floor to double down on the Republican position that Obamacare be part of negotiations to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. I think that this maybe boosted the Republican position and belief system because this was the first answer the population has heard since the shutdown, so therefore it automatically became the most enticing. The audience cost of ANY explanation is going to be much lower (meaning less of a backlash) than the audience cost of no solution what so ever. Make sense? Basically, during a time of uncertainty like this, articles say that because the republican party is the only party speaking out publicly on what they can do to help, could be the reason for their newfound boost; but one could also argue that that is because the democratic party is too busy solving the problem rather than just strictly talking about it. Either way though this crisis is jeopardizing the future of the democratic party according to many political sources, for reasons previously explained.
"Our message in the House has been pretty clear. we want to reopen our government and provide fairness to all Americans under the president's health care law. You know the law had a big rollout last week, but its been called, and I'll quote, an inexcusable mess," Boehner said on the House floor, in reference to the widespread technical glitches on the websites people use to sign up for insurance. "How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn't work?..This is why we need to sit down and have a conversation about the big challenges that face our country."
Nine days into the federal government shutdown, with the debt ceiling approaching rapidly, Republicans continue to hammer President Obama to negotiate to resolve both problems. I personally think that this hammering could be perceived to the people as trying to get the problem solved, which could contribute to the audience cost theory of the declining democratic party as well.
BUT, to switch gears and to give you do completely different side of the government shutdown to think about........one could argue that depending on how you poll the american people, that the republicans are taking the blame for the shutdown. The problem with this theory is that it is unknown whether the strategy will shift blame away from the GOP and onto the Democrats. Right now, when it comes to the congressional seating, the Republicans are bearing the brunt of the responsibility for the crisis: A new Associated Press-GfK survey released Wednesday shows that 62 percent of adults surveyed online mainly blame Republicans for the current shutdown. About half said Mr. Obama or congressional Democrats bear the responsibility. These numbers contradict a Washington Post/ABC poll released Tuesday which showed 70 percent of Americans disapproving of how the GOP is handling the budget negotiations, compared to 61 percent for Democrats and 51 percent for Mr. Obama. At the end of each article it basically said that it depends on how you look at things in order to judge the true audience cost of the situation (that's with all politics though..). I have yet to decide who is to blame for this shutdown, even though all these sources are very convincing. I do not believe that a single party can be held responsible. And I do not believe this blog was created to reflect my own personal opinion on the matter, but to simply educate people on those who have done extensive research on the effects of audience costs as well as those who have related these costs to the current situation of the government shutdown, which is where all this information came from. Sorry about the controversial topic as well, this was just the only situation that was relatable to audience costs and which party to blame is very apparent in the news these days.
The audience costs are clearly in favor of the Republicans at this point. I think the Republicans are actually making the "inexcusable mess" worse by doing nothing, letting the Democrats slowly wilt themselves to future political catastrophe. Obama Care seemed to be a part of Obama's rise to power and now it will be his downfall. I don't think Obama will be taken out of power because his medicare system was trying to help people even though it ended up in shambles. The Republicans will probably take the next two presidential terms as well as majority in the house and senate within the next respective elections. However, the Republicans will probably not attempt to fix the problem if given the chance. They are going to let the Democratic Party kill itself with its own medicine.
ReplyDeleteThis post is an excellent example of how audience costs can effect domestic politics. I'm interested in the predictions made by Dylan, above, which are quite bold although not altogether unfeasible. However, based on the polling numbers I would argue that audience costs will not reward GOP candidates outright in the next election period. They already hold tremendous sway over policy by controlling the house, and this is something that cannot be overlooked in the grand scheme of political bargaining and decision making. American voters remain, at least partially, politically astute... assuming they read the New York Times or an Economist now and then. They will understand that the public nature of the "bargaining" gives them tremendous power. Finally, going along with the last point, if voters want a more streamlined government they will ultimately choose to elect members of one party to a far greater majority in both the house and senate... it will be interesting to see which party comes out on top
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I don’t see the GOP winning the upcoming Presidential election, nor do I think audience costs have actually can strictly be reduced in this situation. The “audience” is responsible for the leader, or leaders within a government system. Therefore, although audience costs may not be as applicable for the President, it is certainly more significant for those in Congress.
ReplyDeleteThese leaders in Congress certainly need some sort of distraction or solution as voters become more and more discontent with the legislative branch of government. Recently, Congress has reached its all time popularity approval rating of 5%. This could potentially be extremely destructive for the GOP, which popular approval rating dropped to its all time low of 28% (15% lower than the Democratic party). Thus, the Republican party will surely not be seeing many candidates return during reelection, unless they are able to force the democratic party to negotiate and give-in to some of the GOP requests. In this respect, risking default is advantageous for republicans with the GOP’s current popularity rate.
However, beyond audience costs this Government shutdown has had extreme repercussions overseas, and it is likely that the US could lose some of its political and economic power, as well as some of its legitimacy. Recently, several nations have requested that Congress put away ideological differences and raise the debt ceiling. The current stability of the world’s economic interdependence is entirely reliant upon the US federal government not defaulting on their loans, if this issue becomes a greater threat this could potentially harm international relations and increase the risk of conflict. This is because as financial stability decreases, the probability of radical groups coming into office and the situations that involve conflict invariably increase. Therefore, the entire economic world is examining the US Congress and its involvement with the debt ceiling and the budget because it could potentially reduce a significant amount of financial decisions that increase economic interdependence, if governments aren’t currently deciding to reconsider there international dependence on the US economy already.
I think that the audience costs in this case will blow up in both parties faces. The unfortunate part of this is the blatant lies that the overly Religious Right, who have hijacked the GOP flat-out lied to their constituents about what shutting down the government would do to Obamacare, let alone the fact that most people do not know the difference between Obamacare, and the Affordable Care Act. These happen to be the same thing, I feel that this should be the major storyline, tis almost like these Congressmen cannot do their job properly.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a partisan solution, because cooperation is what the government was founded on.
I think that this post shows how important audience costs really are. I also think that it is effecting both sides equally, reducing the trust in both democratics/liberals as well as republicans. I think that the following behind republicans has always been stronger, people who follow that party seem to follow them through thick and thin, where as liberals have a tendency to be more critical and very wishy-washy, which may also explain the disappointment they are feeling towards the Obama administration. The polarization that is going on within our government is also greatly reflected in the audience (the American people) and I believe it is very dangerous that they continue to neglect working together. However, I also recently heard that a fox news report released that 59% of republicans are unhappy with what is going on as well (which is crazy for fox news, a highly republican cast that is seemingly biased.) So, yes, audience costs are very important, and on both sides.
ReplyDelete