Five possible reasons why Congress’ approval rating is below 10%
July 8th, 2008 by Thomas KeeleyRasmussen Reports released a new survey today that showed Congress has reached an all time low, receiving a dismal 9% approval rating. This is the first survey in Rasmussen’s history where Congressional rating has dropped below 10%.
Even when broken down by party affiliation, only 13% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans gave Congress positive marks.
While there are a lot of things that could be attributed to this continuing downward spiral, here is a list of 5 Congressional activities (covered by FreedomTalks) from the last six months that might have played a role.
1.) Failed Earmark Reform: Despite efforts by Senator Jim DeMint, Congress was unwilling to pass a bill that would place a one year moratorium on earmark spending.
2.) Attempts to Pass Cap and Trade: Even though gas prices were looming at $4 per gallon, the Senate still tried to push a bill that had the potential to raise the price of gas by $.50 per gallon. Luckily, this was blocked and removed from the floor.
3.) Federal Reserve/JP Morgan Chase Bear Stearns Bailout: Bear Stearns was clearly bankrupt, but the Federal Reserve’s loan allowed J.P. Morgan Chase to eventually offer $10 a share for the firm. That represents about a $1 billion windfall to Bear Stearns shareholders, who should have been wiped out completely for owning an insolvent investment bank.
4.) Dodd/Countrywide Housing Bailout with Hidden Grassley Provision: Despite having received two VIP loans from Countrywide Financial, Senator Chris Dodd is still pushing a bill that would essentially bail them out. On top of that, buried deep inside this bill was a provision from Senator Charles Grassley that requires companies like PayPal, Amazon, etc., to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.
5.) Bloated Farm Bill: Billions in subsidies that hurt taxpayers and play a role in the increasing price of food is only one of the many problems with the 2008 Farm Bill.
I’m sure there are many more that could be listed, so if you have something you would like to ad, please don’t hesitate to mention it in the comments section below.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
[...] friends at FreedomWorks had some ideas as to why this rating is so [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Despite numerous polls showing 70-80 percent want the illegal alien invaders removed NOW Congress does little and many of the Congress critters actually encourage the ongoing invasion of our once sovereign country.
Of course, it is America’s working-poor class harmed the most so Congress is not concerned.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Why focus on earmarks? I want congress to stop spending so much. A moratorium on earmarks won’t cut our spending as drastically as it needs to be.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
[...] read more | digg story [...]
July 9th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Yea, Congress’ approval ratings (which mean absolutely, positively nothing BTW) MUST be a result of Congress not doing what the Right-wing & FreedowmWorks wants them to do…lol…because you guys have been on *such* a roll recently, losing pretty much every election (special or otherwise) for more than a few years now. Give me a break…
How about the fact that a vast majority of American’s want the War in Iraq to end, but everytime the Dems try to do something about that the President and/or his GOP allies in Congress block it? On December 18, 2007 (less than halfway through Congress’ term) the Senate set a record for the most cloture votes in history! NO immigration reform because of GOP opposition, and NO expansion of children’s health insurance due to GOP opposition.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:09 am
THROW THE BUMS & TRAITORS OUT !! IT”S TIME FOR US TO CLEAN HOUSES AMERICANS!!
July 12th, 2008 at 2:12 am
How convenient for you that you seem to be having “server problems”.Well, that’s not the only problems you all are having, now is it?
July 15th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Lack of CONFIDENCE - based upon PAST Performance!
July 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
“Lack of CONFIDENCE - based upon PAST Performance!”
You keep saying the same, exact thing in several threads…why??