With the stimulus bill set to be signed tomorrow, a new Rasmussen poll looks at what the public expects the impact to be: It’s really up in the air.
A 38% plurality believe the bill will help the economy, 29% think it will hurt, and 24% expect it to have little impact. Among Democrats, 66% expect it to help, while 49% of Republicans expect it to hurt. The help-hurt number among independents is in the red, at 27%-34%.
So what to make of this? It appears the Republican attacks against the bill haven’t spread beyond their base of self-identified Republicans and GOP-leaning independents — but at the same time, the Democratic spin for the bill hasn’t expanded past their own base, either. And in the middle are a whole lot of people who either don’t know what to expect, or expect nothing at all.
If the bill works, expect the Democrats to win a huge political advantage. But if it fails — or simply doesn’t succeed enough — the GOP could have their opening.
