Republican leaders, who will take over the House and have a bigger minority in the Senate, say they heard the American people tell them to repeal the ?monstrosity? of health care reform, in the words of the likely House speaker, John Boehner. In fact, the American people said no such thing. In polls of Tuesday?s voters, only 18 percent said health care was the nation?s top issue. While 48 percent of voters said they wanted to repeal the health care law, 47 percent said they wanted to keep it the way it is or expand it ? hardly a roaring consensus.
The ?loud message? to cut spending cited by Mr. Boehner was actually far more muted. The polls showed that 39 percent of voters say cutting the deficit should be the highest priority of Congress, but a statistically equal 37 percent prefer spending money to create jobs. Fully a third of those who want to spend money to create jobs were Republicans.
