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What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, June 09, 2012 

Americans want a little less government in their lives, and they definitely don’t like the government telling them how big a Coke they can drink. 

While surveys for years have told us that Americans prefer a government with fewer services and lower taxes, just over half (51%) also continue to believe the government is more of a threat to individual rights than a protector of them. At the same time, 51% think it’s more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. 

This includes the right to make bad choices sometimes. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made headlines with his proposed ban on the sale of super-size sugary drinks in the name of public health. But 65% of American Adults oppose a law that would ban the sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 ounces. Eighty-five percent (85%) say the government doesn’t have the authority to impose such a ban. 

As Scott Rasmussen explains in his latest syndicated newspaper column, “America’s Political Class likes to frame every debate as a choice between doing nothing or letting the government do it. In the case of nutritional issues, most Americans see another option: Let individuals make their own choices, and then let them bear the burden or reap the reward of those choices.” 

Wisconsin voters opted this past week for a little less government when Republican Governor Scott Walker defeated a recall effort prompted by his budgetary initiative that cut the power of public employee unions. Walker’s win is expected to trigger similar moves against public employee unions in other states. Americans still have mixed feelings about those unions but would much rather reduce their benefits than pay more taxes to fund them. 

After all, most voters have a long-standing belief that tax cuts and less government spending are good for the economy. Voters are much more convinced that taxes and spending will go up if President Obama is reelected and Democrats regain control of Congress than if Republicans win in November. But they’re not so sure the GOP will cut taxes and spending if it’s in charge. 

Still, more voters than ever like the idea of one party running the whole show in Washington, D.C. Forty-one percent (41%) think it’s better for the country with one political party in charge of both the White House and Congress. Thirty-four percent (34%) disagree and feel the country is better off with each branch of government being run by a different party. One-in-four voters (25%) are undecided. 

As for states that don’t like what the federal government is doing, don’t expect another Civil War anytime soon. While belief in the right of individual states to break away from the United States continues to rise, the likelihood of such a move remains doubtful to most Americans. 

Scott Rasmussen contends in his latest book, The People’s Money: How the American People Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt , that voters are ready to support the kind of long-term thoughtful changes needed to balance the budget and eliminate the federal debt. But a Political Class committed to defending the status quo stands in the way of real economic change, he says. 

One thing most Americans don’t want to spend more money on is unemployment benefits. As the national jobs rate continues to show little movement, the majority still prefers short-term government solutions for the unemployed or none at all. That’s because Americans don’t think it’s a good thing to make someone dependent on the government, Scott Rasmussen explains in a new radio update. [Scott is now doing three Rasmussen Report radio updates every weekday, syndicated nationally by the WOR Radio Network. Check out this week’s radio updates here.] 

Despite last week’s disappointing government report on job creation, Americans are expressing more optimism about the job market than they have in well over a year. But three-out-of-four Americans still know someone who’s out of work and looking for a job, and a sizable number know someone who’s given up looking out of frustration. 

It’s been a week since the jobs report was issued, and consumer confidence as measured by the Rasmussen Consumer Index has declined modestly since then. However, it is still eight points above the lowest levels of 2012 and within 10 points of the year’s high water mark. 

The economy remains the central issue in this year’s presidential race. Rasmussen Reports looked at that contest in three states this past week. Likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s support continues to hover around the 50% mark in Missouri. He and the president are neck-and-neck in Colorado and Virginia, two key battleground states that Obama carried in 2008. 

Obama’s full-month Presidential Job Approval Index rating in May was up three points from April, giving him his best rating since February and matching his high for the year. But that rating has suffered slightly since the most recent jobs report. 

Most voters now see Romney as politically mainstream, but they’re evenly divided over whether Obama’s political views are mainstream or extreme. The two men continue to run almost dead even in the daily Presidential Tracking Poll. 

In the early years of the Cold War, most politicians subscribed to the adage that “politics stops at the water’s edge,” but since the Vietnam war, partisan sniping at a president’s foreign policy has become commonplace. Just over a third (37%) of Likely U.S. Voters think it’s bad for the country when candidates for the presidency criticize the foreign policy of the sitting president, but, not surprisingly, there’s a partisan component to the findings. 

Fifty percent (50%) of voters still believe the United States is winning the War on Terror and that America is safer today than it was before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again this week called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down as anti-government violence continues in his country. But most voters still think America should stay out of the situation in Syria. Twenty-nine percent (29%) rate the Obama administration’s response to the situation in Syria as good or excellent, while 24% view its performance as poor. 

Clinton continues to be the most favored member of the president’s Cabinet, while Attorney General Eric Holder is the least-liked Cabinet member. 

But Holder’s not as unpopular as Congress. Just seven percent (7%) of voters now rate the job Congress is doing as good or excellent. Republicans continue to maintain a small lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot. 

Read the rest of the articles with links at Rasmussen