"Those aren't real people, they don't live within the Beltway"

See media ignore, ignore media ignore.

As many have pointed out, the House progressive budget — which calls for substantial new spending to create jobs and defers deficit reduction until later — has been almost entirely marginalized from the Washington conversation. Instead, the outer ideological poles of the debate have been defined by the budget from Senate Dems, which contains as much in spending cuts as it does in new revenues — and a tiny fraction of stimulus spending as an afterthought — and the Paul Ryan budget, which purports to rapidly slash the deficit only through huge spending cuts and contains nothing in new revenues or spending.

In this context, it’s interesting that a new Gallup poll finds that public support for new federal spending to create jobs is simply overwhelming. Large majorities — and even majorities of Republicans — back the jobs creation policies Obama proposed in 2011 and renewed in this year’s State of the Union Speech:

* 72 percent support a “federal government program that would spend government money to put people to work on urgent infrastructure repairs.” This is also backed by 71 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans.

* 72 percent support a “federal jobs creation law that would spend government money for a program designed to create more than 1 million new jobs.” This is backed by 69 percent of independents and 52 percent of Republicans.

Public support for these ideas is high even though the questions explicitly use the phrase “spend government money.”