72% Are Not Confident Congress Knows What It’s Doing When It Comes to The Economy

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Even as Congress puts the finishing touches on legislation asserting more government control over the U.S. financial industry, most U.S. voters continue to believe the legislators have little idea what they're doing when it comes to the economy.

The latest national telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that just 27% are at least somewhat confident that Congress knows what it’s doing when it comes to addressing current economic problems. An overwhelming majority (72%) are not confident in Congress to address these problems. These figures include six percent (6%) who are Very Confident and 43% who are Not at All Confident.

These findings show little change from surveys dating back to late September 2008, just after the Wall Street meltdown that included the collapse of the Lehman Brothers financial firm. Supporters of the new bill say it is intended to prevent another such meltdown.

Those who earn less than $20,000 per year express far more confidence in Congress' economic wisdom than those in any other income bracket.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 18-19, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Since Democrats dominate both the House and Senate, it's perhaps not surprising that 53% of voters in that party are confident in Congress to adequately deal with today’s economic problems. That confidence is shared by only nine percent (9%) of Republicans and 12% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

An overwhelming majority (88%) of the Political Class are confident in members of Congress to handle current economic problems. Nine-two percent (92%) of Mainstream voters don't share that confidence.

Voters consistently for months have said they trust their own economic judgment more than the president’s and that of the average member of Congress.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of Americans say it is better for the economy for the government to stay out of the housing market.

Tuesday's primaries were more proof of the anti-incumbency mood felt in many parts of the nation, and recent polling finds that many voters continue to feel a randomly selected sample of people from the phone book could do a better job than their elected representatives in Congress.

Americans overwhelmingly view the federal budget deficit as a major problem, and they blame President Bush and President Obama – and their respective parties - almost equally for the size of it. Most also believe the Bush Administration increased federal spending too much.

At the end of April, President Obama formally kicked off meetings of his bipartisan deficit reduction commission, but most Americans view the commission as cover for Congress to raise taxes.

Looking back, most voters still believe the bailout of the financial sector was a bad idea. That’s one reason why 57% of voters have more confidence in the judgment of a member of Congress who voted against bailouts than in the judgment of one who voted for them.

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