The U.S. Senate returns to Washington this coming week to tackle two major pieces of legislation that have the potential to make enormous changes in the lives of nearly all Americans.

Senate Democrats will be finalizing the details of a health care reform plan worked out with President Obama, which in all likelihood will include a government-run health insurance company to compete with private insurers.

Voters remain closely divided over the health care reform plan proposed so far: Fifty percent (50%) are at least somewhat in favorite of it, but 45% are at least somewhat opposed. While the overall numbers favor the plan, those with strong opinions tilt the other way. Twenty-four percent (24%) strongly favor the plan, but 34% are strongly opposed.

Likely 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week pointed to the state health reform plan he initiated as governor of Massachusetts as a better alternative to the national Democrats’ plan, but Bay State voters beg to differ. Just 26% of Massachusetts voters say their state’s health care reform effort has been a success, while 37% say it’s been a failure. Only 10% of Bay State voters say the quality of health care has gotten better as a result of the plan.

The Senate also will be taking up the historic climate change bill that narrowly passed the House just before the July 4 recess. Americans have mixed feelings about the bill aimed at fighting global warming, and 42% say it will hurt the U.S. economy. Only 19% believe the climate change bill will help the economy. While estimates vary on how much the plan will cost individual Americans, 56% say they are not willing to pay more in taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

It will be interesting to watch how these critical issues are worked out and what impact they will have on voters’ views of the Congress. Right now, just 18% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job, down from 23% in May.

Al Franken’s arrival will give Democrats a 60-seat majority in the Senate, strengthening their control of that body. They already have a sizable majority in the House to work with the new Democratic president. But 45% of voters say it’s better for the country if the White House and Congress are each run by a different political party. Twenty-seven percent (27%) disagree and say it’s better to have one political party running both branches of government, as is now the case.

As for Franken, 44% have an unfavorable opinion of the former “Saturday Night Live” comedy writer as he prepares to become the newest member of the United States Senate. Thirty-four percent (34%) have a favorable opinion.

Like those of Congress, Obama’s approval ratings have slipped a bit this week in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Americans definitely have mixed feelings about the president’s big policy initiatives. Just 42% now rate Obama good or excellent on economic issues, the lowest findings since he took office in January.

The same goes for the president’s first nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. A heavily publicized Supreme Court reversal of an appeals court ruling by Judge Sonia Sotomayor has at least temporarily diminished public support for her. Rasmussen Reports has been tracking her support every other week, and it is not possible to know at this time if the decline is anything more than a temporary aberration caused by the publicity surrounding the Supreme Court reversal.

On the foreign policy front, 64% of voters do not believe the war in Iraq is over even though American troops this week pulled out of all cities in Iraq and still are on schedule to be completely withdrawn by the end of 2011. If violence flares up again in those cities, most voters say let the Iraqis handle it rather than sending U.S. troops back in.

Forty percent (40%) of voters now say Obama has not been aggressive enough in supporting the reformers in Iran protesting the results of the presidential election held there in early June. That’s a five-point increase in a week. But 42% say the president’s response has been about right, a figure that has changed little since the protests began to escalate.

In other polls last week:

-- The Rasmussen Employment Index for June finds worker confidence up for the fourth month in a row and at its highest level since last October.

-- Confidence as measured in the Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes was up slightly by week’s end and remains ahead of where it was at the beginning of the year.

-- Republican congressional candidates rebounded this week and pulled ahead of Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. The last time the GOP held a lead was in early May.

-- The number of Americans not affiliated with either major political party inched up nearly a full point during June. But the larger picture is one of partisan stability over the past four months.

-- Economic confidence among small business owners rose slightly in June as cash flow concerns abated and the mood on the economy held steady, according to the latest Discover(R) Small Business WatchSM.

-- General Motors revealed in bankruptcy court documents on Thursday that it envisions government ownership of the company ending no later than 2018, but that’s much, much longer than most Americans want the arrangement to continue.

-- For the second straight week, 37% of likely voters say the United States is heading in the right direction, but 57% believe the nation is heading down the wrong track.

-- Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Americans say gun sales are up in the United States because of a fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership.

-- An early look at the 2010 election cycle finds that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, has some work to do if he wants to win reelection.

-- Forty-four percent (44%) of voters say the nation’s best days are in the past, but nearly as many (38%) think America’s best days are still to come.

-- Sixty-two percent (62%) of Americans say the Fourth of July, celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, is one of the nation’s most important holidays. The core ideals in the Declaration of Independence are still embraced by solid majorities of the American public as the country celebrates its 233rd birthday.

-- Finally, 82% of Americans say that, given the choice of living anywhere in the world, they would still choose to live in the United States.

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