America Wants What America Makes
When it comes to purchasing products, Americans want their goods home-grown.
When it comes to purchasing products, Americans want their goods home-grown.
Now that the elections are behind us, 76% of voters think it’s at least somewhat likely that the outgoing Congress will try to pass major legislation during a lame-duck session before the newly elected Members of Congress take office. While most expect them to try, just 36% believe they should.
I can't quite remember certain things that happened in college, particularly during my junior year "abroad" at Dartmouth. I'm sure some of that is age (in this case, a rare blessing), but the larger part is that I don't want to remember. And I can't imagine wanting anyone else to, either, at least not with any greater accuracy than their equally limited memory should allow.
Most new members of the U.S. Senate and House won’t be seated until two months after their election, and a plurality of Americans think that’s too long a time.
A plurality of voters continues to believe that the country’s economy will benefit from free trade, but they also think it will stunt job growth.
A majority of voters see the possibility of big things from the new Congress in the early going next year.
For political junkies of a certain age, it was a given that the House of Representatives would always be controlled by Democrats. They won the chamber in 1954 and held on for 40 years -- more than twice as long as any party in American history had before.
As President Obama and his staff consider delaying the withdrawal date for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, voters remain pessimistic about the longest-lasting conflict in American history.
The wreckage of the Democratic Party is strewn just about everywhere. President Obama’s carefully constructed 2008 Electoral College breakthrough is now just broken, a long-ago memory of what might have been a lasting shift in partisan alignment.
The great Bernanke QE2 debate continues to heat up. In the run-up to the G-20 meetings, China, Russia, Germany and others have all come out against the Federal Reserve's quantitative-easing agenda. They don't want hot-money excess dollars to flow into their higher-yielding currencies.
Video game consumers and retailers have been abuzz about the newest in a line of military-inspired video games which market to people of all ages. But most Americans think violent video games like this contribute to violence in society.
While voters tend to disapprove of the way President Obama is dealing with the country's economic problems, they remain more positive about his handling of foreign policy.
A plurality of voters nationwide continues to believe the U.S. situation in Afghanistan will get worse in the next six months.
Most voters think Congress should wait until the new members take office in January before tackling any major new legislation, but even more expect Democrats to try to pass major legislation anyway in the upcoming lame-duck session.
37
The number of Senate races on the November ballot, the most since 1962.
2
The number of appointed U.S. senators to survive the election, Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The four others didn’t run: Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Roland Burris (D-IL), George LeMieux (R-FL), Carte Goodwin (D-WV).
How interesting that one arm of the Agriculture Department is promoting sales of cheese as another urges the public to eat less of it for health reasons. Your tax dollars at work fighting other tax dollars.
Overstating the importance of a midterm election is understandably tempting for politicians and pundits, especially when the partisan turnover reaches historic proportions, as it indisputably did on Nov. 2. It is a temptation to which Republicans and conservatives seem particularly vulnerable.
Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans consider Veterans Day to be one of the nation’s most important holidays, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Just 28% of U.S. voters say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, November 7. This is the first reading following the midterm elections and the lowest finding since mid-August.
President Obama’s trip to Asia this week took him back to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, where he spent some of his childhood. Despite the president’s ongoing outreach to the Muslim world, many Americans remain wary.