In general, the American public holds distrust and is dissatisfied with the federal government as they ever have been. However, that tone changes when specific problems are asked about.
The majority of people in the survey said the government plays an important role in helping to solve specific issues as well as in certain cases, they say the government is actually doing good. The survey was carried out by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The survey was based upon more than 6,000 interviews that were conducted from August 27 through October 4, and finds that the public attitude towards the U.S. government is much more ambiguous than what many believed in the year of the outsider.
That is the theory that there is a growing dissatisfaction with today’s political establishment, which has propelled political outsiders such as Ben Carson and Donald Trump into the lead in the GOP race for the party’s nomination.
The U.S. public is widely distrustful of the U.S. government and is critical of its performance on a number of issues, found the Pew survey.
However, the majority of Americans have also said the government needs to play a role in the solving of problems from disaster response to terrorism to the environment and education.
While the partisan divides still exist over how much the government involvement should be, those from both parties surveyed said the government should play some role in issues posed in this survey.
Just 19% of Americana said they could trust the U.S. government always or the majority of the time, which amongst one of the lowest levels over the last 50 years.
The debt ceiling fight of 2011 also saw the public trust of the U.S. government drop to the current low of 19%.
In 1958, a study found that 73% of all Americans said they mostly or always trusted the U.S. government to do the right thing, reported Pew.
Today respondents have become more critical in a general sense of the government. Just 20% of the people surveyed said the government is running programs well, while 59% said the government needed a major reform, which is 22 percentage points higher than in 1997.
Responses were mixed on specific problems. In 13 issues, the public opinion was more positive that it was negative in 10 of the 13. The issues included – disaster response, access to public healthcare, terrorism, maintaining the infrastructure and the advancement of the economy.
Leave a Reply