Talk about low expectations.
Rasmussen Reports gave voters nationwide a short list of issues that Congress will consider in the next couple of years, including immigration, government spending and taxes, and asked whether they were optimistic or pessimistic about what the legislators will accomplish in these areas.
A strong majority of voters continue to favor a candidate who works to cut federal spending over one who tries to get a fair amount of it for his home district. Most also think a member of Congress who tries to maximize federal spending for his or her district has selfish motives.
A plurality of voters nationwide believes America’s best days have come and gone, but that number has remained fairly consistent since the beginning of the year.
Earmarks. Pork barrel spending. Call it what you will. Congress views the recent elections as a mandate to cut government spending, and first on the list is a ban on allowing legislators to steer money to their favorite home projects. But voters aren’t quite as gung-ho.
Belief that a home is a good buy for a family remains low.
It isn't the earmarks, stupid. Bullying Republican Senate leaders into a "voluntary" ban on earmarks may represent a political triumph for the tea party movement, but as a measure to reduce the federal deficit it is a meaningless substitute for real action.
Every night, Rasmussen Reports asks voters what issues are most important to them when voting, and economic issues have remained at the top of the list for the past two years.
Thirty percent (30%) of homeowners say the value of their home is less than what they still own on their mortgage. That's the lowest level measured since August but consistent with findings since April 2009.
A growing number of states and localities have banned smoking in public places, but there continues to be little public support for outlawing tobacco smoking entirely.
Homeowners continue to have little short-term confidence in the U.S. housing market but are much more confident about the picture five years down the road. The findings on both questions remain in the ballpark of where they’ve been for well over a year.
And so another class of high school graduates left home this fall, or said goodbye to their friends who left.
Has the recent Republican sweep of the House doomed President Obama's clean-energy agenda? Possibly. Has it doomed America's? Hardly.
As the controversy over new airport body scanners escalates, voters feel more strongly than ever that the U.S. legal system is more protective of individual freedoms than it is of the nation's overall security.
Just 26% of U.S. voters now think the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, November 14. This finding continues to fall since Election Day and is the lowest reading since mid-March.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters think the U.S. Supreme Court is too liberal, while 31% say it’s about right ideologically, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Though overall voter ratings for the U.S. Supreme Court have shifted little from last month, the percentage that says the high court is doing a poor job is at its highest level since August 2007.
Maybe the new Congress should just take the next couple years off because voters sure aren’t very hopeful about what they are likely to accomplish.
"If only we had sold our stocks a few weeks ago." "If only I'd had the brakes checked before she drove up to the mountains."
While it lacks the panache of Patrick Henry’s impassioned “give me liberty” cry (which the Virginian borrowed from Cato, incidentally), the reality is that Republicans looking for a modus operandi in Washington next year could do a lot worse than “give us gridlock.”
President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission ultimately will propose tax hikes, spending cuts or a combination of the two to reduce the country's historic high debt, but most Americans feel they - and not Congress - should have the final say on whether the commission's proposals become law.
