Take a great nation with a fabulous work ethic and inventive people. Turn its $236 billion budget surplus into an estimated $482 billion deficit, and nearly double the national debt to $10 trillion. In the meantime, fuel economic growth with a consumer-led borrowing binge that makes America beholden to China.
Two important questions were asked at Tuesday night's presidential debate.
While the presidential candidates were debating in Nashville on Tuesday night, the Asian stock markets were selling off by 10 percent. Earlier in the day, the U.S. market plunged by 500 points. These were big-time drops, yet presidential debaters never talk about the stock market. Nashville was no exception.
All season, political observers have been speculating when, if ever, the Electoral College and the state and national polls would reflect the basic pro-Democratic fundamentals of the presidential election year.
A majority of voters (52%) continue to believe the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, and nearly as many (48%) say America is safer today than it was before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Just over half of adults (52%) say they intend to receive a flu shot this year, up from 44% last year, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Three out of four U.S. voters (76%) believe a person should be required to show photo identification at the polls before being allowed to vote, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 18% do not agree.
I'm happy to give my friend Madeleine Albright credit for the line, as Starbucks apparently has. But the truth is I've been using it for years in speeches to women about how we need to help each other get ahead in business, politics and academia.
There was a joke going around conservative circles during the mid-1960s that we conservatives were warned that if we voted for Barry Goldwater, America would get deeper into the Vietnam War. The punch line was that we did vote for Goldwater and America did get deeper into Vietnam.
The Discover U.S. Spending Monitor dipped 2.2 points to 86.5 in September, as consumers grew increasingly concerned about the U.S. economy and worked hard to hold-the-line on future spending plans.
Two-thirds (67%) of U.S. voters have a favorable opinion of Tom Brokaw, the moderator of tonight’s presidential debate, and nearly as many (62%) expect him to be neutral.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of Americans believe it is possible to drill offshore for oil without harming the environment, but nearly as many (48%) also acknowledge that there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.
The Democrats’ lead has held steady this week in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that, if given the choice, 45% of voters would choose their district’s Democratic candidate, while 37% would choose the Republican candidate.
Political independents now rank health care second among the issues they most want the presidential candidates to discuss, according to a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll for September. The No. 1 issue for independents, as well as for Democrats and Republicans, is the economy.
The only way Congress could pass a $700 billion economic bailout package last week was to spend an extra $110 billion that the federal government does not have.
Voters now trust Democrats more than Republicans on all ten key electoral issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports.
Seventy-two percent (72%) of U.S. voters say the United States is the best nation in the world, despite the country’s economic woes and criticism of American foreign policy from abroad.
Congress was front and center in the national news last week and the American people were far from impressed. If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again.
As reform measures go, Proposition 11 -- the redistricting reform measure -- is hardly a transformational law likely to supercharge activists (of any political stripe) eager to make Sacramento more effective and more accountable to the public.
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process.
