More than seven years ago, U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein at a time when Iraq was the central front in the War on Terror, and Hussein was public enemy number one. That capture led to an immediate increase in consumer and investor confidence.
Voters continue to believe tax cuts and decreases in government spending will benefit the nation’s economy. But most also still think government spending will go up under the Obama administration.
Ben Bernanke held the first-ever press conference by a chairman of the Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday and plans even more. Many voters think this increased transparency by the nation's chief banker will be beneficial to the economy, although they still have mixed feelings about Bernanke himself.
I hope you were as amused as I was to read about the recent discrimination lawsuit against Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J.
Even though the last session of Congress was one of the biggest spending in history, very few voters are aware that most of today’s federal budget deficit is actually the product of congressional decisions made decades ago.
Voters aren’t sure about the short-term implications of the debt ceiling debate, but they recognize that the official figures understate the magnitude of the problem.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 51% now believe buying a home is a family’s best investment. That’s down from 55% in March and from 73% in February 2009.
"I've been running a small service business for a while now, and it seems like I have problems with every client these days. Most don't pay on time -- I have to remind them every month to pay their invoices, and a couple have stopped returning my phone calls altogether.
Just one-out-of-two Americans now say their home is worth more than what they still owe on their mortgage.
Today is Tax Day, and although the deadline was pushed back three days, 17% of Americans still have not filed their income taxes.
Both short and long-term confidence in the U.S. housing market continue to fall, with homeowners now expressing the highest level of pessimism in two years.
President Obama’s new deficit-reduction plan doesn’t even try to project a time when the federal budget will be balanced. Congressman Paul Ryan’s Republican alternative puts a balanced budget at least 25 years away. No wonder most voters don’t foresee a day in their own lifetimes when the budget will be balanced again.
Even as President Obama prepares to explain his long-term plans for cutting the federal budget deficit to the nation, a sizable number of voters still worry the government will try to do too much in response to the country’s continuing bad economy.
President Obama is expected to lay out his long-term deficit-cutting plan in a speech to the nation tonight, but most voters feel the president and Republicans in Congress are unlikely to agree on major spending cuts before next year’s elections. They also aren't confident either side will come up with a serious plan to begin with.
"My two brothers and I have run a successful service business for more than 20 years, which we run as a 'C' corporation.
Washington, D.C. is abuzz with Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to cut $4 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, but voters throughout the country aren’t paying that much attention.
Most Americans still expect interest rates to be higher a year from now. But they're less likely to say they are paying higher interest rates than they were a year ago, and fewer owe more money than they did back then.
Just under half of voters understand that making major cuts in government spending over the long haul will require substantial changes in three of the most politically sensitive areas of the federal budget.
Confidence in the stability of the U.S. banking system is up a bit this month but still remains at discouraging levels.
Americans feel more strongly than ever that the lack of immigration law enforcement directly effects poverty in the country.
