Rasmussen: 59% Of Americans Agree With Reagan, “Government Is The Problem”

As Obama lays out more and more spending, creating more and more government, to fix our economy Americans are telling pollsters that they agree with Ronald Reagan. Government isn’t the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Since then, the stock markethas fallen roughly 3,000 points, millions of jobs have been lost, nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry, an additional $787-billion government stimulus package has been approved, and a new president has taken office who has proposed spending billions and billions more.
Despite all that, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that the basic views of the American people have not change: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.

This basic agreement by the majority with Regan’s view of government (not to mention Reagan coming in third only to Obama and Jesus as America’s hero over 20 years after leaving office) is undoubtedly why Obama and his handlers are scrambling to compare Obama to Reagan. But Obama doesn’t stand up well to that contrast.

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  • http://Array sayanything-4625

    Reagan not only cut taxes, he also increased deficit spending to its highest levels sense WWII. Rep. always mention the tax cuts but never mention the increased spending. Which is what caused the turnaround. Reagan’s Keynesian approach worked then, why wont it work now?

    History doesn’t seem to agree with you Buzz…

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8308.html

    Speaking only a few weeks into his presidency, Reagan called on Congress to enact sweeping spending and tax cuts.

    Addressing the lawmakers directly in his televised speech, Reagan said, “I extend my hand in cooperation, and I believe we can go forward in a bipartisan manner. I’ve found a real willingness to cooperate on the part of Democrats and members of my own party.”

    Reagan had to contend with a Democratic-led House. The Senate, however, for the first time in 26 years, had a Republican majority, created in part on the strength of Reagan’s 1980 electoral victory over President Jimmy Carter.

    A few weeks later, in forging “a new beginning for America,” Reagan pledged to send Congress a detailed economic program. “It will propose,” the president said, “budget cuts in virtually every department of government.

    It is my belief that these actual budget cuts will only be part of the savings. As our Cabinet secretaries take charge of their departments, they will search out areas of waste, extravagance and costly overhead, which could yield additional and substantial reductions.”

    In May 1981, Congress approved nearly the entire presidential initiative. It reduced personal income taxes by 25 percent over a three-year period, cut federal spending on a wide swath of social programs and accelerated a military buildup that had begun under Carter.

    The recession that Reagan cited in his speech — widely attributed to Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker’s fiscal policy of controlling runaway inflation through record-high interest rates — deepened in 1981. But by 1984, a strong economic recovery helped Reagan win a second term, easily defeating Democrat Walter Mondale.

    http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=igs

    President Ronald Reagan’s first hundred days are often considered the classic case of a presidential honeymoon because he was able to win passage of his landmark budget reconciliation bill, which included massive tax and spending cuts, from a Democratically controlled House of Representatives.

    He then raised taxes after receiving a promise that spending would be cut by the same amount. That didn’t happen.

    http://hubpages.com/hub/Democrat_vs_Republican_Tax_Cuts_

    Deficits did appear, as anticipated, under the Reagan tax cut as a result of Congress continuing to increase spending despite the initial reduction in tax revenue (as I described in the previous article, there is a lag between the tax cut and the increase in revenues). However, the rising deficits did end up pressuring Congress to reign in some of their spending. Suddenly it was Democrats who were concerned about rising deficits but this could be due to both the public’s concern about inflation, having recently experienced double digit inflation in the 1970s as well as frustration over having to cut back on new spending programs due to the inability to raise taxes to pay for them.

    At the bottom of the article the author makes this prediction about Democrats and it turns out to be relevant to our time. This was two years ago mind you:

    As to the future, we can probably expect Republicans to continue to be the party of tax cuts because these are in line with both their political and economic agendas. While Democrats will probably stay away from tax cuts as a policy tool in the near term and rely on increased spending as the tool of choice for combating downturns in the economy.

  • Bat One

    Swish,

    I know I had intended not to respond to your lunatic rants any more, but your admissions today that you are “depraved” and an “asshole” certainly merit some small acknowledgment.

    You are wrong about quite nearly everything you’ve ever written here, but in each of those two instances, you are correct.

  • robert108

    BTW, conservatism is not “ideology”; that would be your stupid Marxism. Conservatism is founded on principles.
    If you don’t know the difference, look it up.
    Educate yourself.

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    we just saw the end of 30 years of conservative dominance

    What a nutter! Bill Clinton, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as “conservatives”.

    revising history

    More projection than a multiplex!

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

    So, more regulations are going to create jobs?

    How’s that deregulation working out for us right about now?

  • robert108

    By the time Regan left office deficits were 6% of GDP. We are still fighting his legacy of spending.

    Another lie from you; the legacy is of the Dem Congress, which not only spent the increased revenue from his tax rate cuts, but more on top of it.
    You continue to lie, “Buzz”.
    The fact is that revenues to the Treasury increased as a result of his tax rate reductions, as they did when Kennedy reduced tax rates and when GW Bush reduced tax rates.
    The problem is always wasteful govt social spending; always.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    The most amazing thing is how people like you will hold on to your mistaken ideology like grim death.

    If McCain had gotten elected and done NOTHING to alleviate the crashing economy you’d all be happily living in tents!

  • sayanything-4625

    For once Dino, you’re right, they did forget about surpluses and it has cost us Congress, funny you aren’t talking about how Obambi and the Democrat Congress that are spending like drunken sailors, surpluses be damned!

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    Reading the posts on this blog from conservatives, one would think it was the late 70s and we had just left a period of liberalism and that republicans had spent years as the minority party.

    But see, this is 2009 and we just saw the end of 30 years of conservative dominance with many electoral victories for republicans. Republicans set the agenda and passed all kinds of conservative policies.

    The result? DISASTER.

    So what do the cons do now? Why they play the little whiny bitch victims, of course, spinning and revising history to deflect the blame for their massive failures!

    Pathetic.

  • Buzz

    By the time Regan left office deficits were 6% of GDP. We are still fighting his legacy of spending. Not to mention the thousands of mentally ill he through out into the streets.

    But it was all about the tax cuts, right, that’s all he did was cut taxes and, poof, all was fixed. Then why didn’t it work this time? Cut taxes for 8 years and the country is a mess. If you don’t mention anything else you can make anything sound like a good idea.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    Don’t forget your chart, stems!

    Image and video hosting by TinyPic

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    we liberals don’t live in constant fear like cons do.

    That’s why you don’t oppose private ownership of handguns or the death penalty for capital cases because you have nothing to fear. Oh, wait! You do!

  • sayanything-4625

    Have fun watching the Cactus League! Drink a brew for me!

  • sayanything-4625

    Nice non answer, you specialize in the frothy rant! Good work, find something you do well and stick to it, I say!

  • imagine

    Absolutely!
    get rid of those regulations. get rid of the oversight.
    because that makes things cost less….

    Obama didn’t build the boat we are in. He just happens to be at the helm currently.

    The last 8 years saw a huge increase in Government…but apparently that wasn’t noticed by the right? since they were the ones doing it….

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    Reagan’s dead. So is the republican party and conservative revolution. All good things.

    As suffering increases, as it did today with the report of more massive job losses, people will expect their govt to do more than sit back and watch them suffer.

    Republicans will pay dearly for their strategy of strategic, partisan, ideological obstruction.

  • docdave

    How much republican failure does it take until you people abandon your ideology?

    Let’s see. Our repubic has last over over 200 years. Now how has socialism/communism prospered. The Soviet bloc of nations lasted 50 years. China is still going strong but only because they have embraced capitalilsm. West European nations who have adopted socialism are bleeding from a number of failures and will have to something different if they are to survive.

    Yeah, there’s a lot of historical proof that socialism is better than republicism. /sarc

  • robert108

    Too bad Raygun grew the government and gave us huge tax increases.

    More lies; it was the Dem Congress that did those things, although President Reagan held it down enough to enable us to recover from the Carter economic debacle.

  • sayanything-2407

    Especially compared to a great President like Clinton. Now there was real growth.

    A Hard-on does not count as real growth….

    [chuckles]

    couldn’t resist….

  • http://pennypatch1.com/id188.html Ron Russell

    Government means–long,long lines and longer lies. Government will only complicate the obvious with double talk. Will sweep the dirt under the carpet—trivialize the momentous. Read my recent post “Squirrel Nut Politics”. You hunters may like it.

  • Buzz

    Reagan not only cut taxes, he also increased deficit spending to its highest levels sense WWII. Rep. always mention the tax cuts but never mention the increased spending. Which is what caused the turnaround. Reagan’s Keynesian approach worked then, why wont it work now?

  • imagine

    So, more regulations are going to create jobs?

    more regulations will only create jobs for the regulators.
    Those regulators might have saved a few of the millions of jobs that have recently been lost.

  • Buzz

    While the economy has grown under the Bush administration, growth was below average in comparison to the average for business cycles between 1949 and 2000. Overall real GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 2.5%. Between 2001 and 2005, GDP growth was clocked at 2.8%, 0.6% below the average of 3.4%, while GDI (Gross Domestic Income) growth was 36% below average. The number of jobs created grew by only 6.5%, 28.5% below the average growth rate of 9.1%. The growth in average salaries was less than half as usual; 1.2% versus 2.7%, respectively. While growth in consumer spending was 72% faster than growth in income, it too has “failed to keep pace with the… average of previous cycles.” Only investment residential real-estate soared, growing 26% faster than average.[19][20]

    Growth is a relative term which you through out like candy in a parade. Growth well below average isn’t really growth is it. If you really look at the numbers and not just positive and negative you can see his policies were a failure. Especially compared to a great President like Clinton. Now there was real growth.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    One party or ideology never controls 100 percent but one can certainly dominate and in our winners-take-all system, do.

    Liberalism dominated from post WW2 to the mid-70s. That’s what the people rejected when reagan (may he burn in hell) convinced them that liberalism was the source of their discontent. So then conservatism dominated until very recently.

    I’ll bet when we finally hit bottom, the people will curse themselves for beig seduced by the empty promises of conservatism that have led to disaster.

  • Hoth

    How’s that deregulation working out for us right about now?

    What deregulation.

  • richNJ

    The problem is not more government or more regulation. What the government has to do is enforce the laws and regulations that are already on the books. Who was fired for the Fannie/Freddie Mac fiasco? Who was fired in the FTC for not catching Madoff’s ponzi scheme. And it goes on and on. The Government does not do its job but explains that it other peoples fault not theirs. When they are always telling us that they will solve the problem.
    The problem is the Government and the lack of ethics by ALL the politicians.

  • bill-tb

    Obama voters are beyond stupid. They are so full of cruel, meanness and hate that it’s becoming laughable.

    It’s a common fact, one can’t be liberal and rational at the same time.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/ likwidshoe

    imagine – Absolutely!
    get rid of those regulations. get rid of the oversight.
    because that makes things cost less….

    Where did you read that?

    The last 8 years saw a huge increase in Government…but apparently that wasn’t noticed by the right? since they were the ones doing it….

    You must be another one of those idiots who paid no attention to what “the right” was saying for the last eight years. You apparently pay no attention unless it is to your own narrow partisan squabbles.

    Those regulators might have saved a few of the millions of jobs that have recently been lost.

    They might have also built a rocket to blast to the moon.

    Sure, buddy…make some more shit up.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

    Too bad Raygun grew the government and gave us huge tax increases.

  • Mickey

    Do not feed the troll. Resist the urge. Watch it beg.

    The irony of the Robin Hood/Obama plan is that by punishing industry and the wealthy with higher taxes they in turn will be forced to pass this cost on to the consumer. Less wealthy citizens, like most liberals, will feel the pinch in their pocket book even more so than the upper class. The liberals resentment for the “rich” will continue to fester.
    This social experiment has already flopped in europe. We are looking like the UK did about fifteen years ago under Tony Blair.

    What goes around comes around.

  • Bat One

    Ah, yes! Spring training. Baseball’s back. And for a couple of hours out in the sunshine all is well with the world.

    I envy you, Citizen. I truly do!

  • robert108

    How much republican failure does it take until you people abandon your ideology?

    Two failures on your part, dumb little dinostem! There is no “Republican failure”; the failure, as always, has been the failure of Dem social engineering and wasteful social spending.
    After trillions of wasteful spending on “The War on Poverty”, poverty is unchanged! It didn’t work! Redistributing wealth, on a massive scale, can’t change poverty! It’s a total failure!
    After thirty years of affirmative action home loan mandates, there is no change in housing; those who can afford it have homes, and those who can’t afford it are going to lose their homes. Trillions in wasted spending on mandates have made things worse! CRA failed! Fannie and Freddie failed! You can’t get people into homes they can’t afford! It doesn’t work!
    Years of Dem preaching defeat and cut and run from the terrorists didn’t work, either! We defeated the terrorists in Iraq, freed the people from a murdering dictator and freed them to have a voice in their govt.
    Your treason and defeatism failed! It’s didn’t work! Your lies about Iraq didn’t work!

    Dem failure, little boy.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    My, just look at this chart of deficits from 1981 to 2004!

    Image and video hosting by TinyPic

    Just LOOK AT THOSE REPUBLICAN DEFICITS! Except for those FOUR CLINTON YEARS!

    Explain THAT.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    And amazingly, the republican Congress forgot how to create surpluses when Bush got elected!

    Dumbass!

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    How much republican failure does it take until you people abandon your ideology? That’s the amazing part. How you will hold on to the ideas that have failed so badly.

    Is it just the child-like fantasy of a world without taxes?

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    I see Citizen thinks he has a winning formula! Freak out the liberal by appealing to self-interest!

    That’s called “projection”. You forget though, that we liberals don’t live in constant fear like cons do.

    I’ll live in a fucking PARK and sleep on a bench if it means seeing republicans shipped off to work camps in the Mojave. You don’t seem to understand the depth of my depraved sense of vengeance for the last 30 years of conservatism.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    Hmm, I’ll see that as soon as you see what your devotion to republicans has done to all of us.

    Do you people, like, believe we had a Utopia before Jan 20th? Are you all institutionalized?

    At what point do you admit to yourselves that you were wrong? I can’t begin to imagine what your personal lives are like when you have such a deluded sense of reality and ideological rigidity. Goddess help your loved ones.

  • Rezistik

    Obama voters are beyond stupid. They are so full of cruel, meanness and hate that it’s becoming laughable.

    It’s a common fact, one can’t be liberal and rational at the same time.

    Uh uh. So you say we’re hateful and mean…and then say we can’t be rational.

    Right. Just to clear that up, you say we are mean and hateful…and then proceed to insult us?

  • sayanything-4625

    But it was all about the tax cuts, right, that’s all he did was cut taxes and, poof, all was fixed.

    Ignore this Buzz and don’t let facts get in the way of your rant.

    Deficits did appear, as anticipated, under the Reagan tax cut as a result of Congress continuing to increase spending despite the initial reduction in tax revenue

  • richNJ

    Dino….you notice the budget surpluses took off when the Republicans were elected to Congress!

  • robert108

    I see Citizen thinks he has a winning formula! Freak out the liberal by appealing to self-interest!

    Sad, pathetic little dinostem thinks everything is about him. This is typical of homos: they tend to be self-centered, narcissistic, paranoid and deluded into thinking that the world is obsessed with them. It is really sad little dinostem who is obsessed.
    No matter how often Dem policies fail miserably, he just keeps spewing his ignorance.

  • sayanything-4625

    If you really look at the numbers and not just positive and negative you can see his policies were a failure. Especially compared to a great President like Clinton. Now there was real growth.

    http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2007/4/18/bush-vs-clinton-the-economic-verdict.html#read_more

    Here is what US News and World report had to say about a comparison between Bush and Clinton:
    (Notice what they say about the starting point for each President) Its easy to have real growth when you are handed the “dream team”

    First, some context. When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, he was dealt the greatest hand since Phil Jackson became coach of the Chicago Bulls with probable future hall-of-famers Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen already on the team. The U.S. economy was already expanding, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union seemingly meant that defense spending could come down–which encouraged Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to cut interest rates. Then Clinton got a Republican Congress in 1995 that was also eager to bring the budget into balance.

    By contrast, Bush inherited an expansion that was on its last legs, and then he had to raise defense spending to deal with the biggest attack on America in its history–of course, neither Bush nor Congress has shown a whole lot of interest in controlling nondefense spending. Now, one way to statistically compare the two economic records is by looking at the Bush expansion vs. the Clinton expansion. And 21 quarters into each, the economy has grown 16.6 percent under Bush vs. 19.9 percent under Clinton–advantage No. 42. And the unemployment rate 22 quarters into each expansion–jobs numbers come out more frequently — show that the current unemployment rate is 4.4 percent vs. 4.5 percent under Clinton. Slight edge to No. 43. Now, when you add in–or subtract out–the effects of the stock market (for Clinton) and housing bubbles (for Bush) and where each president began, I think this ends up as a “pick ‘em” situation at this point.

    Notice that the Bush economy begins to go down when we elected the Democrats to Congress. Shocking!

  • SHADY

    The last 8 years saw a huge increase in Government…

    Hey imaginary, Pres. Bush only had 2 yrs. that he could do anything, the rest of the 6yrs., the loser commi-dems sat on there lame duck ass’s and would’nt let Bush pass any laws they did’nt like. Thats really reaching across the isle and being bi-partisan!!

  • sayanything-4625

    Dino often misses facts that don’t conform to his world view. He is a Democrat.

  • sayanything-4625

    Democrats lying about spending cuts? Go figure!

    Democrats lying? Never happens! They pay all their taxes too! Its patriotic!

  • sayanything-4625

    Pot met Kettle!

    Do you really think that if we were as bankrupt as you say then we should be spending even more money? If Bush was spending like you claim, we should be doing great economically because everyone knows that if the government spends money it stimulates the economy! I’ve got a question for you, if it was good for Clinton to have surpluses why shouldn’t Obama? If it is good to spend money to stimulate the economy, why do you castigate Bush for doing it, after all it should have stimulated the economy? Have fun answering that!

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    How much republican failure does it take until you people abandon your ideology? That’s the amazing part. How you will hold on to the ideas that have failed so badly.

    Substitute “communism/ socialism” for “republican” and then go ask your fearless leaders Pelosi, Reid and President Zero the same question.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/america_is_back/#c397018 DINO

    Republicans and bush spent the money on beer, lotto tickets and internet porn!

    Obama is going to spend it on the rent and food.

    Bush came in under a surplus in good times.

    Obama comes in under a Depression. Or did you miss the news today about the Amazing Shrinking Republican Economy??

    Do you teach your kids to think like this?

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    Dino often misses facts that don’t conform to his world view. He is a Democrat.

    It’s called “cognitive dissonance”. Dino holds the two views simultaneously that conservatives have held dominance in government “for 30 years” and everything in the economy is due to their actions, but, oooh, but look what Clinton was able to do!

    He constantly parrots the line that budgets “originate” in the executive branch, as if the budgets that actually pass Congress bore any faint resemblance to them!

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    He then raised taxes after receiving a promise that spending would be cut by the same amount. That didn’t happen.

    Democrats lying about spending cuts? Go figure!

  • http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

    One party or ideology never controls 100 percent but one can certainly dominate and in our winners-take-all system, do.

    Dino: Do you just string words together randomly because you like the sound of them? So, according to you, in our “winners-take-all system”, when Bill Clinton was elected along with a majority in both the House and Senate, it was because winners take all? And two years later, when Clinton was still in the White House and Republicans gained control of Congress, it was because…winners take all? You make no sense, dim Demstem!
    Stop arguing with the pretty nurse and take your meds!

  • sayanything-4625

    Is it just the child-like fantasy of a world without taxes?

    Who has ever asked for a world with no tax? All you have is overblown rhetoric. When will you get over your child like fantasy that socialism works?

  • sayanything-2483

    Well, I’ve dealt with Dino’s stupidity long enough for today. Time to head to the ball park to watch the Giants play the Royals. A good day to all, even little Dino who I thank for being the entertainment for the morning. Try not to trip over your clown shoes as you proceed through life. LOL!!

  • sayanything-2483

    Obama is going to spend it on the rent and food.
    DINO on February 27, 2009 at 08:20 am

    Which you will need after your boss goes out of business due to huge tax increases.

  • sayanything-2483

    I see Citizen thinks he has a winning formula! Freak out the liberal by appealing to self-interest!
    That’s called “projection”. You forget though, that we liberals don’t live in constant fear like cons do.
    I’ll live in a fucking PARK and sleep on a bench if it means seeing republicans shipped off to work camps in the Mojave. You don’t seem to understand the depth of my depraved sense of vengeance for the last 30 years of conservatism.
    DINO on February 27, 2009 at 11:24 am

    I hope you’re not freaking out. I want you to be calm so you can clearly see what your vote will be bringing YOU.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    So, more regulations are going to create jobs?

  • sayanything-2483

    Hmm, I’ll see that as soon as you see what your devotion to republicans has done to all of us.
    DINO on February 27, 2009 at 11:39 am

    I can only speak for myself. My only devotion was to my family, not ANY political party. I’ve never trusted government and prepared accordingly as I taught my kids to do the same. At what point will YOU admit that YOU were wrong? Will it be when you actually are living in a park and sleeping on a bench?

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