President’s standing is weak, but conservatives must use specific, data-driven arguments tying the new stimulus to the failed 2009 stimulus in order to win.
WASHINGTON – Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS) today released a new strategy memo by its president and CEO Steven Law, focused on President Obama’s latest stimulus plan. The memo is based on a recent survey that tested opinions and attitudes of 1000 Americans concerning the plan.
The memo can be found here.
According to the memo and survey, just 45% approve of Obama’s “jobs plan” while 44% disapprove. However, while the president’s standing is relatively weak, conservatives must aggressively and specifically litigate the proposal in order to win the debate:
The public is open to being convinced by either side on the best way to revitalize our economy; therefore, [conservatives] need to challenge Obama’s plan in detail … In every case in the survey, detailed, data-driven arguments significantly outperformed more generic statements and arguments.
The survey identified three key messages conservatives should use to effectively push back against the president’s stimulus plan:
- Opposition to Obama’s plan is bipartisan
- Obama’s plan is a retread of his failed 2009 stimulus that spent billions while the unemployment rate increased
- Obama’s latest stimulus is a “Band-Aid” that doesn’t fix our real problems
“President Obama is clearly on weak ground with this second stimulus, but to ensure that conservatives win this debate we must aggressively litigate the specifics of the plan – the state government bailouts, the bipartisan opposition to its components, and the fact that it doesn’t address underlying problems in a serious way,” said Crossroads GPS president and CEO Steven Law. “The president’s jobs plan is little more than a watered down repeat of his 2009 stimulus, which spent $830 billion without bringing the employment rate down.”
Crossroads GPS is a policy and grassroots advocacy organization that is committed to educating, equipping and mobilizing millions of American citizens to take action on the critical economic and legislative issues that will shape our nation’s future in the years ahead.
For more information, contact Jonathan Collegio at [email protected] or (202) 559-6424.
