What a week it has been! As the political world recovers from its deep exhaustion and wonders about the fallout from the debt ceiling deal, it’s worth taking a step back.
Americans believe overwhelmingly that someone without health insurance should be treated in an emergency room if they are seriously injured, even if they are in this country illegally.
Alice Cooper said it best: “No more Mr. nice guy.”
The Obama administration on Monday announced a new set of standards that require health insurance companies to cover all government-approved contraceptives for women, without co-payments or other fees for the patient. A plurality of Americans nationwide opposes this requirement and would like to have the option of picking their health plans based on cost and what coverage they need.
It’s been three long years since the Bush Administration told voters that the government needed $700 billion right away to avoid a financial industry meltdown. That legislation, known in the political world as TARP, remains very unpopular with voters nationwide and is a potentially potent factor in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chicago, IL/ Washington DC– August 3, 2011 – Public opinion pollster and analyst Scott Rasmussen hosts his second broadcast of The Rasmussen Report radio show this Sunday on WMAL 630AM in Washington, DC and WLS 890AM in Chicago, two of the nation’s top news talk radio stations. The show will be streamed live online as well.
Although voters are skeptical that federal spending will actually be cut following the debt ceiling debate, a majority opposes automatic spending cuts if Congress doesn’t reach its reduction goals. A so-called Super Committee has been tasked with finding cuts of $1.5 trillion over a decade and recommending those cuts to the full Congress. If no cuts are agreed upon, automatic cuts are supposed to go into effect.
"Leading from behind." That's what an unnamed White House aide told the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza that Barack Obama was doing on Libya.
Stocks and bond yields are sinking as Wall Street disses the debt deal and instead focuses on a likely double-dip recession.
Congress just can’t win. Most voters still lack confidence even their own local representative and want to replace every single one of them.
Just 14% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, July 31. That finding is the lowest measured since November 2, 2008, just before Barack Obama was elected president.
Voters continue to believe U.S. society is fair and decent, while the number who believes immigrants should adopt American culture hovers around the all-time low.
The debate over global warming has intensified in recent weeks after a new NASA study was interpreted by skeptics to reveal that global warming is not man-made. While a majority of Americans nationwide continue to acknowledge significant disagreement about global warming in the scientific community, most go even further to say some scientists falsify data to support their own beliefs.
Most Americans disapprove of the debt ceiling agreement reached by the president and Congress earlier this week and most doubt it will actually reduce government spending.
The debt deal, if it sticks, is a triumph for the bipartisan, status quo-clinging Washington establishment. Here is a prediction: Between now and January 2013, total actual spending cuts will be minimal. That will result from the following: (1) The $900 billion deficit reduction is almost all back-loaded to the years beyond 2012. (2) The select committee created by the budget deal will fail to pass a "second tranche" deficit-cut package of an additional $1.5 trillion. (3) The "trigger" will be pulled that will identify an additional $1.2 trillion. (4) The pulled trigger won't require any more deficit reductions to go into effect until 2013, when a new Congress and either a new president or a re-elected President Obama will be able to re-decide (or repeal) all these decisions. That president will also have to decide what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts, which if extended would be scored to increase deficit by $3.5 trillion over ten years. (5) The debt ceiling will not need to be raised until 2013.
Americans think the Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, but they overwhelmingly believe that separation is not violated by plans to include the so-called 9/11 cross in a memorial on the site of the World Trade Center.
A generic Republican candidate now leads President Obama by five points in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up.
Voter confidence in the future of the country has returned to the lowest levels found in nearly five years of surveys.
The Rasmussen Employment Index, which measures workers’ perceptions of the labor market each month, fell nearly eight points in July to the lowest level since March.
An overwhelming majority of voters nationwide want members of Congress to take a pay cut until the federal budget is balanced, and a plurality also thinks the president should chop his salary in half until that time.
