Poll: Majority believes government doing too much

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A quarter century after the Reagan revolution and a dozen years after Republicans vaulted into control of Congress, a new CNN poll finds most Americans still agree with the bedrock conservative premise that, as the Gipper put it, "government is not the answer to our problems -- government is the problem."

The poll released Friday also showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans perceive, correctly, that the size and cost of government have gone up in the past four years, when Republicans have had a grip on the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House.

Discretionary spending grew from $649 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $968 billion in fiscal year 2005, an increase of $319 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Queried about their views on the role of government, 54 percent of the 1,013 adults polled said they thought it was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Only 37 percent said they thought the government should do more to solve the country's problems.

Read more @CNN.


David Eisenberg of the John Birch Society provides commentary on the CNN study:

A new CNN poll found that 54 percent of Americans believe that government is trying to do too many things, as compared to 37 percent who believe that government should do more. The poll also found that most Americans recognized that the government has continued to grow during a period when the Republican Party — the supposedly conservative party — has controlled both houses of Congress as well as the White House. "When asked if the size of the federal government has increased in the past four years, 72 percent said it had, and 86 percent said they thought federal spending had gone up during the same period," CNN reported on October 27.

Yet we continue to send representatives to Washington — both Republicans and Democrats — who vote for the big-spending programs that most of us apparently oppose. Politicians do not promise high taxes and big government on the campaign trail, but more often than not that's what they deliver when they get to Washington. The big-spending politicians are able to say one thing and do something else because too few voters back home pay attention to their actual voting records. If sufficient numbers of voters did pay attention, and then applied informed pressure on their elected representatives in Washington, the gap between rhetoric and record would soon disappear.

CNN acknowledged that "in recent months a growing number of conservatives have been complaining out loud about increases in the scope and cost of government, despite the GOP's grip on all the levers of power." CNN quoted Republican Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), reputedly a conservative, saying, "I believe that as a movement, we have veered off course into dangerous and uncharted waters of big government Republicanism." Pence, CNN reported, is "chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, a 110-member caucus that supports limited government and lower taxes."

Read more @ The John Birch Society.