Tea Leaves and Tea

On Sunday the Washington Post wrote about a recently conducted poll that concentrated on Obama's fall in the polls. And indeed that is one of the stories that the poll seems to produce. The poll itself is presented on this link. If you look at the questions the President has slid in the polls - although generally people like him as a person and seem to think he is a trustworthy guy. Feelings about Congress are considerably more negative than those about the President. The poll found that almost two thirds of voters think the country is going in the wrong direction. The current 37% is certainly significantly higher than it was in some periods in the Bush administration but it is also down by about a quarter from this administration's high point. All those things are well known from other polls.

For me however the most interesting question was this one - Generally speaking, would you say you favor (smaller government with fewer services), or (larger government with more services)? (The Chart reads right to left - from 1992 - present and RED is the smaller government, fewer services response. The numbers on the horizontal axis are support for smaller government.)



The WP did not cover this poll, which seems to indicate that the Administration's quest for more government and more taxes is not supported by 58% of the voters. That may be because of the Post's own editorial policy or some other odd reason. Support for less government and fewer taxes has never in the time of the poll dipped below 50%. You wonder how any politician who listened to this consistent and pretty strong trend might fare in the political realm. We elect politicians to make choices and it seems from this poll that we are grumpy when they don't do that job.