Americans Want Less Spending, More Independents in Congress in 2014
Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing and 57 percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction. With so much dissatisfaction, the new Reason-Rupe poll finds 38 percent of Americans would like to see more independent and third-party candidates win congressional seats in the 2014 midterms, 31 percent prefer more Democrats and 23 percent of Americans would like more Republicans elected next year.
No matter who is elected to Congress, Reason-Rupe finds 54 percent of Americans want the federal government to spend less money next year, 23 percent favor spending the same amount as this year and 16 percent would like to increase federal spending next year.
Half, 50 percent, of Americans approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing, while 43 percent disapprove. The president loses support on his handling of the economy, where 45 percent approve and 47 percent disapprove.
Nationwide telephone poll conducted May 9-13 2013 interviewed 1003 adults on both mobile (503) and landline (500) phones, with a margin of error +/- 3.7%. Princeton Survey Research Associates International executed the nationwide Reason-Rupe survey. Columns may not add up to 100% due to rounding. Full poll results found here. Full methodology can be found here. Demographics and detailed tables are available here.
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All this talk about Democrats getting crushed in the midterms was off the mark, then. Turns out Republicans stand to get trounced, too.
/fantasyisland
Isn't this simply saying what should be obvious, that if voters of all persuasions could tailor their ideal politician (the chimerical "independent"), they'd prefer him (or her!) over the milieu of candidates who will actually run? It's no stretch to say that the current assembly of representatives is unsatisfying. It takes a political nobody like Obama or an empty suit like Romney to inspire enough projection among the reliable party paritioners to attain office.
*parishioners, ffs. fml!
Americans Want Less Spending, More Independents in Congress in 2014.
Half, 50 percent, of Americans approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing
What?
I think this is off on Obama's approval rating. Every other poll I've seen has it between 45 and 47%.
Look, if Republicans would quit impeding the administration's glorious ascendence, Obama would usher in an era of untold, paradisical grandeur. Which is why we need more independents in Congress, because Democrats are too quick to compromise with obstructionist Republicans. We need true Progressives in Washington.
Zzzzz...
So where are these independent Congressmen who want to cut spending?
They are Libertarian candidates who, no matter what the polls say, win the support of a tiny minority of those fed up with the Demopublicans.
I think in the abstract wanting to cut spending is a lot easier to support than to support an actual politician who wants to cut actual programs.
Maybe, but voters should vote for the candidate who actually wants to cut stuff anyway. He's not likely to be able to destroy the fedgov all by himself, but he might help stop the budget from growing even bigger.
Americans Want Less Spending, More Independents in Congress in 2014
And how do these Americans propose going about achieving this?
I suspect someone's going to have to stop voting for Dianne Feinstein. It's a puzzlement.
I've voted against here every time I could.
The only independents in Congress are Angus King and Bernie Sanders. The latter is a socialist so what about the former?
As near as I can tell, King is one of your local-populist types while Bernie is a real nationalize-the-means-of production-socialist (not one of those namby-pamby liberal social democrats).
Given that they both support every aspect of the current welfare state plus adding all kinds of new entitlements as well as showing a willingness to vote for just about any corporate bailout or subsidy that's promoted as "for the workers" it is unlikely that either one is going to vote for any spending cuts any time soon.
Sure they want spending to be cut...in someone else's district. There's a reason congress has a 90% recidity rate.
Yeah, a majority of Americans want less federal spending, but the only line item a majority can agree to cut is foreign aid, and the ruling class won't even cut that.
I think it's safe to say that a majority of Americans want less federal spending except for those programs that are "really necessary".
Trouble is those are exactly the programs that cost all the money. 🙂