What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending January 28, 2011
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President Obama, in his State of the Union address last Tuesday night, called his plans for targeted new spending in areas like education, transportation and technology “investment,” but his speech did little to sell the idea to voters.
Rasmussen Reports asked voters the same three questions about the president’s economic proposals on the two nights prior to the speech and then again on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. On the first two nights, 39% supported the proposals. On the next two nights, support was 41%. Fifty percent (50%) now oppose the federal government spending more money in areas like education, transportation and technological innovation, up from 45% in the previous survey. Scott Rasmussen discusses this and other aspects of the speech in a new video.
The bottom line is that most voters, as they have in surveys for years now, continue to feel that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.
The need for deficit reduction also was a key part of the State of the Union speech, but few voters (22%) expect the president to hit his goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
After all, despite talk from congressional Republicans, most voters (54%) still think Congress is unlikely to significantly reduce government spending over the next year.
The new Congress, even with a Republican majority in the House, has a ways to go to convince voters it's not just as bad as the one that ended in December. Just 10% rate the new Congress’ performance as good or excellent. Forty-eight percent (48%) say the legislators are doing a poor job. GOP voters remain the biggest critics, as Scott notes in a video analysis.
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