On a related note, Gallup finds that not only do voters want Congress to address immigration reform, they've actually become more concerned about the millions of immigrants already here than border security. This represents a slight, if fundamental, shift I would expect to continue, but don't expect an electorally pre-occupied Congress to do a damn thing about it this year. Besides, if my immigrant, Republican father-in-law is any indication, once we get here, we immediately want to shut the door behind us.

And under the heading, "Buyer's Remorse," similar polls dropped this week that show more voters than ever regret both the Afghan war and voting for Barack Obama. Yeah, and I regret getting married the first two times, but what can you do? Coulda, shoulda, woulda….

One more poll number before move on: More than 500 years after Copernicus, roughly one out of four Americans believes the sun revolves around the earth. Now whether that's more of an indictment of the pollster or the polled, I'll let you wrestle with.

The Congressional Budget Office made the news again this week, declaring that raising the minimum wage would cost more jobs than Obamacare. Or something like that. But what estimates such as these often neglect is how prevalent public assistance is among minimum wage workers. One study revealed that along with the typical minimum wage a Walmart employee makes, on average, that employee also collects $1,000 a month in taxpayer-funded government assistance. So in addition to the tax breaks these companies typically collect at the local level in the form of reduced property or sales taxes, they also benefit from a taxpayer subsidized work force. I'm not sure which pisses me off more.

(And while I'm raging against the machine here, is it me or is there a distinct difference in how the so-called left-wing media is covering a pair of nearly identical, quickly escalating international uprisings? Even that hotbed of lefty thought, Huffington Post, can't look away from Kiev, but has no idea what's happening in Caracas. At the very least, both of these revolutions in training are worth our attention. One just happens to be in our backyard…)

Anyway, speaking of surveys, make sure you join me and my friends at Oliver Wyman on a webinar next Thursday when we go over our annual health care survey. You can sign up here.

By the way, time is running out to sign up for our 10th annual Benefits Selling Expo in April in Colorado Springs, Colo. You can register here.