Matt points to the new Pew poll showing only 2 percent of voters think the deficit is the biggest problem facing the country and warns that deficits don't matter to the public, particularly not compared to 1993, when 17 percent thought they were the nation's preeminent problem.
My feeling, contrary to Matt, is that the difference between 1993 and 2006 isn't that Americans have stopped caring about the deficit, but that we have a lot more problems. Deficits certainly matter to me (though I think they're sometimes warranted), but I don't think they're more important than a disintegrating health care system, or terrorism, or Iraq. Similarly, when you don't force folks to name their top concern, 55 percent think reducing the deficit should be a top priority, and 35 think it should be a second-order priority. So I wouldn't say they don't matter -- they just don't matter more than everything else does. In 1993, things were quite a bit calmer, and Ross Perot managed to convince voters that deficits were to blame for joblessness, so it was a bit of an ahistorical moment, priorities-wise. That's not to say deficits are politically irrelevant, though. Very few folks think gay marriage is the preeminent issue facing the country, but the GOP sure ekes a lot of votes out of it.
