What is the anger really about?

Legislators have been facing angry, hostile audiences across the nation the past two weeks as they try to explain and defend the (so far nonexistent) health care bills. Democrats have been trying to downplay this, arguing that it is the result of organized conservative groups. Even if true, that of course overlooks the obvious point that conservative groups have had little difficulty finding lots of angry people to organize.

But is the anger really just about the health care bills? This is just speculation, but I wonder if the anger isn't really more about the soaring deficit and the perception that Wall Street has gotten a big bailout at the expense of the rest of us. No one asked us about the bailout. No one held town meetings about the fiscal stimulus plan. No one asked voters to weigh in on whether AIG and Bank of America ought to continue to pay huge bonuses even as they took government money to survive. So in fact these town meetings about health care are the first real chance voters have had to express their views on the whole sorry mess -- and they are angry.

Polls do indeed suggest that a large portion of the nation is getting increasingly skittish about the amount of money this administration and this Congress is spending, and the rate at which they are increasing the national debt. Democrats ignore this at their peril, and I suspect much of the anger at these town hall meetings is really rooted in those fears.