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	<title>IdeasCategory: America&#8217;s Voice &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Where Republicans Are Going Wrong On The Fiscal Cliff</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/20/where-republicans-went-wrong-on-the-fiscal-cliff/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/20/where-republicans-went-wrong-on-the-fiscal-cliff/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:30:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Frank Luntz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[America's Voice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Obama Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GOP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[middle class]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxpayers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26567</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Republicans are heading toward defeat on the fiscal cliff, but not for the reason they think. The failure is not that they will have to allow taxes to increase, but that they will no longer be seen as a watchdog for taxpayers and the party of less wasteful Washington spending. To most Americans, the cause of our budgetary woes is not about taxes at all. It’s about a wasteful Washington culture that can’t stop spending. In a poll we conducted on election night for the Republican Main Street Partnership of voters nationwide, Americans are clearly more in favor of budget cuts rather than tax increases — and the one dollar in tax hikes for one dollar in budget cuts deal that is currently under discussion will be overwhelmingly rejected by Republicans and Democrats alike. While the public does endorse some tax increase and does want an agreement reached, even among Democrats, there’s far more support for trimming the budget than raising taxes. (MORE: The Making of a Cliffhanger) Republicans are missing the bigger picture.  In traditional polls, people often say that the two issues they care about most are jobs and the deficit, but in the focus groups I have conducted for Fox News and CBS News and for various corporate clients over the past 100 days, what seems to matters most to Americans begins with the question: “Can America afford the path we’re on?”  Affordability is how Americans process their anxieties, not by isolating issues but by personalizing what it means to live a lower quality of life. “Can America afford the path we’re on?” encapsulates everything — jobs, spending, the debt, and a growing fear of the future. President Obama’s approach to that question, and to the fiscal cliff, is to demand tax increases on the rich, declaring that the top two percent aren’t paying their fair share. But there’s another question, equally as powerful, that would have put Congressional Republicans on sturdy footing: “Who is fighting for hardworking taxpayers?”  Notice that I didn&#8217;t say “middle class.”  That phrase<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26567&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">image: House Speaker John Boehner makes a brief statement to the media at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 19, 2012.</media:title>
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