Thirty-six percent (36%) of voters believe the $787-billion economic stimulus plan passed by Congress in February has helped the U.S. economy, while 34% say it has hurt the economy. Twenty-four percent (24%) say it has had no economic impact.It's insane. We're deep in a deflationary event where the only thing keeping the economy going is government spending, and 62% of Americans think the answer is tax cuts. 51% want to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending and say that will magically create jobs.
While some in Congress are pushing for a second stimulus package to fight the country's rising unemployment rate, only 21% believe that additional stimulus spending is the best tool. Sixty-two percent (62%) believe tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and fight unemployment. Fifty-one percent (51%) say a better way to create jobs is to stop all stimulus spending now.
Most voters (53%) worry that the federal government will do too much when it comes to reacting to the nation’s financial problems. Concern about the Federal Reserve's actions in recent months is advancing a bill to audit the Fed in the House.
Voters continue to think that the president’s top budget priority should be cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. But they see it as the goal the president is least likely to achieve.
Obama's economic team has dropped the ball so badly that they think the same economic policies that led to the near collapse of the global economy are the solution to the problem. We've spent a couple trillion extra dollars this year and producer and wholesale prices have remained flat. Housing prices continue to fall dramatically. If the stimulus wasn't there, we'd be in freefall. As it is, we haven't spent enough to counteract the housing depression.
And yet more and more Americans are being convinced that Obama, the Democrats in Congress and the stimulus caused the depression. All they know is people are losing their jobs, so we need tax cuts, because that's what the Pretty Hate Machine tells them to think.
1 comment:
You can't lose it with a year remaining before the first "true" measurement of the country's temperament. If these opinions remain come next fall then he failed his mid-term, otherwise the shifting sands of public opinion polling tell us little about specific issues (although the economy is probably easier to measure than others, like a KSM trial)
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