How the tables have turned. In September 2008, when GOP presidential nominee John McCain said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," unemployment was 6.1 percent, the credit crunch had yet to reach the point that prompted President George W. Bush to propose a bailout, and Team Obama proclaimed that an out-of-touch McCain "just doesn't get it" on the economy.
The recession has forced nearly two in five (39 percent) Americans to save less for their golden years, but it hasn't changed their perception about whether middle income families can save for retirement.
In his essay "Why the GOP Can't Win With Minorities," conservative scholar Shelby Steele almost nails the half-question in the title. An African-American, Steele contrasts the "moral activism" of liberals with conservative calls for personal discipline.
For some Americans, the current economic crisis is bad for more than business.
Fifty-three percent (53%) of U.S. voters believe more nuclear power plants should be built in the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Confidence in the War on Terror rose this month, with 51% of likely voters saying the U.S. and its allies are winning.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of U.S. voters now say the military should be used along the border with Mexico to protect American citizens if drug-related violence continues to grow in that area.
Union members tend to believe that most workers want to join a labor union. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 47% of union members hold that view while only 18% disagree.
Consumer and investor confidence increased dramatically over the past week after falling to record lows. On Sunday morning, March 15, the Rasmussen Consumer Index rose to the highest level since November 5, the morning after Barack Obama was elected president.
"The war on drugs is a failure," Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Cesar Gaviria and Ernesto Zedillo -- the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico -- wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month. "Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization … simply haven't worked," they wrote.
Is it really necessary for taxpayers to spend another dime on the TARP? We’ve already committed $700 billion, half of which was spent under Pres. Bush and half of which is coming under Pres. Obama. And now, as we wait with baited breath for Treasury-man Tim Geithner’s detailed plan to purchase bank toxic assets, the TARP could rise by another $1 trillion or more.
Who elected these people, anyway?
The head of the United Nations on Wednesday called the United States, which pays nearly one-fourth of the international organization’s $5-billion annual budget, a “deadbeat” because it doesn’t always get the check in on time.
We've been hearing a lot of criticism of Barack Obama in recent days from pro-Obama corners -- from celebrity investor Warren Buffett, from moderate conservative columnist David Brooks, from one of the Democratic Party's deepest thinkers, William Galston -- all along the same lines.
The botched Caroline Kennedy-for-Senate affair? Proposing a slew of unpopular new taxes? These issues and more have prompted a 26-point dive in New York Governor David Paterson’s approval ratings over the last two months.
Forty-three percent (43%) of Americans agree with President Obama’s proposal to require all schools nationwide to follow the same standards for curriculum and grading.
Nearly two months into an historic session of Congress wrestling with one of the nation’s severest economic crises, voters have not changed their opinions of major congressional leaders from both parties.
Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty in federal district court in New York to all 11 counts against him, waiving his right to an indictment, avoiding the humiliation of a trial, and depriving his victims and the public of what might have been a public course in how Ponzi schemes work, and how even sophisticated investors can be played for dupes.
America has a case of low self-esteem. And it’s not getting any better.
If President Barack Obama's response to the economic crisis is imperfect, as he acknowledges, and if the Congressional Democrats leave much to be desired as well, then Americans can at least be thankful that the nation's fate has not been consigned to the frozen minds on the other side of the aisle.
