Voters have mixed feelings about President Obama’s decision to halt the deployment of a proposed anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe, but many worry that it will hurt America’s relationship with its European allies.
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
With the health care debate raging in Washington, D.C., there’s one change Americans clearly believe in: Members of Congress have now surpassed corporate CEOs to hold the least favorably regarded profession in the country.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters without health insurance favor passage of the health care plan proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 504 uninsured voters found that 35% are opposed.
Democrats seem to have shifted their thinking on a number of issues since President Obama took the oath of office. Figure some Dems have more faith in government with a like-minded man at the helm, and besides, circumstances have changed. But also figure that some Democrats were just looking for sore spots -- and their anti-Bush rhetoric was based not on principle, but raw opportunism.
Actions have consequences, politically speaking. Just check the first set of Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 surveys.
I got a very nice e-mail from B.A. in Anchorage yesterday. Actually, it wasn't very nice. She (I think it's a she, but I don't know for sure) thinks I'm completely clueless and worse. But that's OK. She doesn't think I should be killed or strung up because I disagree with her. Reading the e-mail wasn't so scary that I had to forward it to the campus police and wonder why I bother. As far as I could tell, B.A. was actually trying to have a civil conversation with me about why she thought I was wrong.
Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters nationwide now hold populist, or Mainstream, views of government. That’s up from 55% earlier in the year. These voters are skeptical of both big government and big business.
Fifty-one percent (51%) of U.S. voters now say Congress should end all federal funding of the controversial community organizing group ACORN.
A new government report concludes that taxpayers are unlikely ever to be repaid for much of the bailout money already given to General Motors, but 57% of Americans believe it’s likely the government will have to provide even more bailout funding to keep GM in business. That figure includes 23% who say an additional funding request is very likely.
It was nearly twenty years ago. While assessing L. Douglas Wilder's 1989 victory for governor of Virginia, I first noticed that for four consecutive elections (1977, 1981, 1985, and 1989), the Old Dominion had voted for the gubernatorial nominee of the party opposite to the one controlling the White House. It merited a paragraph, but nothing more.
One week after President Obama’s speech to Congress, opposition to his health care reform plan has reached a new high of 55%. The latest Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows that just 42% now support the plan, matching the low first reached in August.
"Obama's Speech Doesn't Turn the Tide," reads an ABC News headline about new poll results on public reaction to the president's address on health care reform. An interesting take, given that the tide doesn't need turning.
No matter how we ask the question, voters continue to put economic issues such as jobs and economic growth highest on their list of concerns.
"The level of unemployment is unacceptably high. And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years."
President Obama in a speech on Wall Street this week repeated his call for greater oversight of the U.S. financial system, but opposition to more government regulation in that area of the economy has now risen to 53%.
The health care reform legislation working its way through Congress faces many obstacles primarily because it touches so many aspects of life. The abortion issue is one more with the potential to create a lose-lose situation for advocates of the plan.
Over the last three decades, American consumers have demonstrated precious little in the way of fiscal responsibility. Rather than adopting a motto of "spend only what you earn" and carrying on the frugality of previous generations, we've witnessed the dawning of an "age of credit." Little plastic cards have promised (and delivered) instant gratification to tens of millions of consumers - only to hit them later with double-digit interest rates, "fine print" which ruins their legitimate borrowing potential and condemns many to a downward cycle of debt and despair.
The stupid misconduct of entertainer Kanye West and politician Joe Wilson demonstrated, if any fresh proof is necessary, that thoughtless rudeness isn't confined by ethnicity, ideology or background. With their highly public episodes of misconduct, both earned sharp public censure.
One week after President Obama’s speech to Congress, opposition to his health care reform plan has reached a new high of 55%. The latest Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows that just 42% now support the plan, matching the low first reached in August.
