Two-out-of-three (66%) Likely U.S. Voters think gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already living in America when it comes to immigration reform policy.
Voters now see congressional Republicans as slightly more partisan than their Democratic counterparts and are more pessimistic about the overall level of partisanship in Washington, D.C. than they have been in nearly a year.
Democratic California state Sen. Loni Hancock is pushing legislation to end California's death penalty. "Capital punishment is an expensive failure and an example of the dysfunction of our prisons," she explained in a statement. "California's death row is the largest and most costly in the United States. It is not helping to protect our state; it is helping to bankrupt us."
After dipping to a two-year low last month, the number of Americans who expect to pay higher interest rates next year has returned to levels found earlier in 2011.
President Obama continues to insist that tax increases be part of any deal to raise the federal debt ceiling before he agrees to the level of spending cuts Republicans are seeking. But most voters don’t see it that way.
Voters continue to say President Obama is doing a better job on national security issues than economic issues, but his marks in both areas have improved slightly over the past several weeks.
Voters remain slightly more conservative when it comes to fiscal policy than they are on social issues, while 29% still say they are conservative in both areas.
One-in-five Americans (20%) say they or someone they know has bought large quantities of traditional light bulbs to use when those bulbs disappear off store shelves next year under new federal light bulb regulations.
At long last, President Obama seems to have run out of patience with the truculent Republicans who have rejected all of his overtures for a budget deal -- just as Moody's and other economic authorities again warned of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a debt default.
Voter optimism about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has slipped back to levels measured before the killing of Osama bin Laden.
President Barack Obama has billed his "grand bargain" as the adult compromise because it has something for everyone to hate. The package would raise the $14 trillion debt ceiling (which the public hates), raise taxes by $1 trillion (which Republicans hate) and cut spending by $3 trillion (which Democrats hate) over 10 years. As the president argued in Monday's news conference, it's time for Washington to eat its peas.
In November 1946, a tall, mustachioed figure stood alone on a railroad platform at Washington's Union Station, waiting for the president of the United States to make his ignominious return to the capital. In victorious times, the platform would have been full of welcomers; as it was then, at the time of their party's defeat, Dean Acheson, the future secretary of state, was the only one waiting for President Harry Truman.
When it comes to frozen treats, Americans prefer to keep it simple.
Most Americans remain worried about inflation and lack confidence in the Federal Reserve to keep inflation under control and interest rates down.
Consistent with trust in individual citizens rather than government officials, most adults nationwide still trust a jury over a judge to determine the innocence or guilt of a defendant. However, faith in juries is down a bit following the Casey Anthony verdict.
As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.
The United States is a country that has been peopled largely by vast surges of migration -- from the British Isles in the 18th century, from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century, from Eastern and Southern Europe in the early 20th century, and from Latin America and Asia in the last three decades.
There are a lot of pieces to the debt-ceiling deal. There are the taxes upon taxes, as The Wall Street Journal editors describe it. That's the roughly $1 trillion in new Obama taxes on top of what he's already signed into law. It's an economy and jobs killer.
As the nation struggles with high unemployment and a depressed housing market, voters are evenly divided about which worries them more—that the government will not do enough to fix the economy rather than do too much.
So where are the jobs? Job creation has basically flattened over the past two months -- very bad news, as unemployment exceeds 9 percent.
