Washington (CNN) - A majority of Americans oppose the economic stimulus program, according to a new national poll.
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Sunday say they oppose the stimulus package, with 42 percent supporting it.
Last March, just weeks after the stimulus bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama, a CNN poll indicated that 54 percent of the public supported the program, with 44 percent opposed.
The program, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, attempts to stimulate the country's economy by increasing federal government spending and cutting taxes at a total cost to the government of $787 billion. No Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate voted in favor of the bill.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted January 8-10, with 1,021 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
–CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this story.
From CNN Politics
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To all the liberals where everything is a free ride as long as the nanny government provides ; there is a segment of people in this country who work (beyond pushing a mouse) and understand economics!! There ain't no free rides!
It is hard to believe the diasters our country faces, that took many years to create, are expected by many to be resolved overnight.
When you have a party that obstructs anything and everything, wants to continue with the status quo, which is support totally big business and sacrifice the people, that will stoop to any sewer tactic they can
to win, than you have a hugh problem trying to put our country back
on it's feet.
I have never seen politics at the level they are today, never witnessed a political party that has lost all integrity, honor and ignores the people and our country, refusing the responsibility of doing what they were elected to do. The party of Nothing has clearly lost it's way.
Yes, lets all have a depression instead.
No matter what course is taken, the Republicans who caused this will find a way to blame it on Obama.
The Democrats party line and EXCUSES are unending.
The Democrats had 60 seats in the Senate. And even with just under 60 you are still making excuses.
Maybe if you made progress and did not push for COMPLETE SOCIALISM you would be able to get things done. The problem is NOT the republicans. The problem is that BARACK is a SOCIALIST and he is pulling a Chavez. He is trying to push too far to the left and too liberal of an agenday. He Easily could have passed a bill if it was not such an EXTREME bill.
Cut the costs in healthcare.
Do not ADD to the costs.
David Axelrod is kidding himself. He said on This Week that the polls show that Massachusettes voters want Brown to vote with Democrats. These guys are in la la land. Wake up. They voted you down.
Why wont the Democrats give the American Party what they want.
Here's an analogy to consider. Most people wind up borrowing money at some point along their careers to buy either a car, a home, or something they want. The expectation is that whom they borrow from will be repaid; the bank or some lending institution or perhaps another person.
The economic stimulus plan basically kept the economy from going over the cliff. Greed (on the lenders side) and greed (on the borrowers side, ie the public who couldn't really afford it) has gotten us to where we are now. The U.S. public (not any single individual here....our collective) have spent more than we can pay in any reasonable timeline given the tax base percentages used today. So sure, most people don't want higher taxes, but then they shouldn't expect anything to be done without money being there to spend.
My guess is that none of us fully understands what we are doing long term. I do know that the national debt is getting out of hand. I do know that cutting taxes is in one sense, a kind of spending in that lowering the amount you take in while increasing spending only speeds up our ever increasing debt. The public should pay for what we get. It's that simple. So, don't expect the government to save us if you don't want to pay any additional taxes, just realize your kids and their kids will have to fix this thing.
When did everyone decide the fed is responsible for making jobs. You liberals and conservatives are crazy..... Conservatives will say, "we have lost 4 million jobs since Obama was elected." Liberals will say we need a second stimulus. What I cant get is in a free market the fed does nothing and it works... Please people, read a book about economics, really.
Unemployment is 10.2% Democrats.
People Need jobs.
Stimulus spending only puts us more in debt.
Healthcare speding only puts us more in debt.
Barack is full of excuses. Cut spending.
David Axelrod makes excuses. Stop drinking the kool aid.
They keep trying to build class wars.
They are playing the Chavez playbook. Socialists all the way.
Did any of them offer anything to actually repair the damage done by Bush & His Talibans?
Really this poll is not bad news for Democrats, it is bad news for the country. People are so amazingly dumb that they do not realize what WOULD HAVE HAPPENED instead they only see that we are not back to the glory days of Bill Clinton. Those glory days they remember came after several years of fixing the mistakes of reagan and bush I. The stimulus stopped the private sector from going into free fall. Keeping the auto industiry afloat, putting dollars into cash starved schools and states, fixing infrastructure (here it was route 422) that had been ignored for decades. All of which in combination stopped the descent into a Great Depression that republicon policies started, and that republicons will continue is they get a chance.
So politically, not good for Democrats. B ut republicons doing well right now with their unrepentant ideology of failure is bad for the Republic. Period. Even entertaining the idea of voting republicon is no different than when Rhianna got the shart kicked out of her and as the bruises and cuts and fractures were just starting to heal because of her excellent physicians, inviting the abuser back for another go
Write your Senators and Congressmen. They need to wake up.
We do not want additional spending.
Cut the healthcare bill.
Cut the stimulus spending.
Cut your budgets.
Cut the size of goverment.
The same nuts who oppose the stimulus package now benefits from it. The last administration destroyed this Country. Without the stimulus we would be in a great depression.
The economic stimulus bill is not even relevent anymore. With the ruling by the supreme court last week, the "golden rule" meaning those that "got the gold will make the rules". Corporate America will be running this country.
The rich will get richer and the middle class and the poor will get poorer. And means that the rich will pay no more taxes, but the middle class and the poor will bear the tax burden.
To those overwhelmed by the Mass. vote, I suggest they need to take a closer look at this guy. He used the same shtick from the book of Huey Long. But instead of parading the holes in his socks and bellowing 'a chicken in every pot' (all the while campaigning in his $500 suits and dining in luxurious restaurants)– Scott Brown drove around in a pickup truck with oodles of mileage to connect to the common folk and denouncing the HC bill. MEANWHILE, he has 2 homes, 3 condos and a time share in Aruba, and FREE HEALTH CARE!!!!! Is he one of the 'family values' supporters????
BUT BUT.....I'm a rock star. Everyone should love anything and everything I do.
There oughta be a constitutional mandate for especially federal and state governments:
The minute you propose spending public funds for anything - anything! - you also propose taxation to pay for it.
Wow. Just imagine having to balance a budget like most private citizens do. The calamity in government today is that we want all the programs for one purpose, reason or interest or another ... and refuse to pay for it. Like two wars on the cheap, bank bailouts, stimulus packages, and a host of welfare and aid programs.
What specific programs in the package do those polled object to.
is the 1200 dollar tax rebate. money that goes into the middle class workers pocket. Was it the jobs programs to start fixing our roads and infrastructure. was it the extension to unemployement benefits.
I for one used the tax credit for green energy updates to my house. I placed solar water heater arrays on my roof for domestic and radiant floor heat. This created/saved local American jobs and also reduced my oil consumption by 750 gallons.
The problems we are seeing took years to get us where we are and will not be solved /fixed in a couple months. The stimulus package has not been fully distributed. If you dont like the tax refund you received than give it back. Fundamentally a large portion of the package went to tax cuts for the corporate business interests, arent tax cuts the mantra of the repugnant party.
the WSJ from jan 2009
The size of the proposed tax cuts - which would account for about 40% of a stimulus package that could reach $775 billion over two years - is greater than many on both sides of the aisle in Congress had anticipated. It may make it easier to win over Republicans who have stressed that any initiative should rely more heavily on tax cuts rather than spending.
@ annie s- couldn't have said it better myself!
I agree the problem with Americans and politics (and most everything else for that matter) is that we are a nation of instant gratification. we want everything we want, when we want it and if it's a nanosecond late, we throw hissy fits, start wielding threats, and act like toddlers coming down off a sugar high. We're finicky voters. It's absolutely true we should be SELECTIVE and hold people accountable, but if you go into it with unrealistic expectations, you're only going to be let down.
Fixing the economy has to be looked at in a realistic manner. It's like trying to lose baby weight. If it took you 9 months to pack it on, it'll take you at least 2x to lose it. We didn't get into this mess overnight and we won't get out of it overnight!
The current stimulus did nothing but borrow money from the Chinese to fund goverment jobs that we can not afford.
Obama-Biden=No hope and fiscal disaster
@Marie MD January 24th, 2010 9:14 am ET
"Wow! One thousand people polled. What is the population of the US? Roughly 308.4 million people? ... These tiny little numbers mean absolutely nothing!!"
Uh, Marie, haven't you studied any statistics at all? Look up the term "confidence interval."
And regarding your comment that "If only the repugs didn't want him to fail," when a US president undertakes to subvert the will of the people, to repudiate two centuries of the ethos of that people, he should fail!
"A majority of Americans oppose the economic stimulus program, according to a new national poll."
So? Obama doesn't care what we ignorant, non-Harvard-ducated, slobs think. He's smarter than we are, and he knows it. Why should he care what we think?
In addition to being smarter than we are, Obama, knows far better than we do, not only what we need but what we ought to want and what we ought to have, and our opposition to his wisdom just reinforces his certain knowledge that we're too ignorant and too stupid to be allowed to make any significant decision without the "help" of government.
Money went to UNIONs and sustainment of county, state and federal workers – no private companies benefited.
56 Percent are against the Stimulus plan and STILL Barack wants to
force it down our throats.
The Democrat Congress has been in charge for 3 YEARS.
YOU ARE DRIVING THE COUNTRY INTO THE GROUND.
Barack tried to steam roll the American People.
The president is an idiot and needs to stop spending.
Many Democrats are against the president on the spending and on the health care. It is not only the republicans who are fighting the presidents spending.
To Al....what ARE you talking about? ...It WAS passed 10 months ago!!!
Amazing how stupid and easily mislead the American electorate can be. GOP ran us into this ditch and they say they want to help us get out of it. But they lie and obstuct every step of the way.
Remember who got us into all the messes we are dealing with;
The GOP and there so called leadership.
americans have very short memories