New Poll Shows Americans Have Lost Faith in Promises of Big Government

New Poll Shows Americans Have Lost Faith in Promises of Big Government

on Mon, 30 Jun 2014

A new Gallup survey finds that Americans’ confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen dramatically, reaching record lows for Congress (7 percent), the Supreme Court (30 percent), and a six-year low for the presidency (29 percent).

Survey results were based on telephone interviews conducted June 5-8, with a random sample of 1,027 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

The presidency, currently with Barack Obama in power, has experienced the largest drop of the three branches of government this year, falling seven percentage points from its prior rating of 36 percent.

Gallup acknowledges that while the name of the president in office is not mentioned when the poll question about confidence in the presidency is asked, it is clear that “how positively Americans evaluate the current president has a direct impact on how much confidence Americans place in the presidency as an institution.”

According to Gallup, while Americans have typically had less confidence in Congress than in the other two branches of government, the Supreme Court and the presidency have alternated as the branch most trusted by Americans since 1991.

Gallup explains:

But on a relative basis, Americans' confidence in all three is eroding. Since June 2013, confidence has fallen seven points for the presidency, four points for the Supreme Court, and three points for Congress. Confidence in each of the three branches of government had already fallen from 2012 to 2013.

“At this point, Americans place much greater faith in the military and the police than in any of the three branches of government,” Gallup writes.

Though America’s government has been gradually growing and drifting leftward for years, through both Democrat and Republican administrations, it is only Barack Obama who has vowed to “fundamentally transform” the nation from its constitutional ties to small government and the focus on individual liberties, to a bigger than life-size view in which the federal government – a.k.a. “taxpayers” -- will provide birth control, healthcare, food, shelter, education, and even cell phones to anyone who wants them.

Obama’s “fundamental transformation” promised all Americans they could depend on the government for whatever they needed. The Gallup poll results clearly show that most Americans have no faith in his promise.