Congress Disapproval Ratings: It's the Attitude, Not the Altitude

The country is in tough economic straits but you wouldn’t know it by how much Congress is spending on itself…The spending spree is so big that the House Appropriations Committee has just authorized $195 million for the Pentagon to buy three Gulfstream jets to ferry government officials around the country on “official business.”..You’d think the House leadership would have thought twice about such poor symbolism

John Fund, WSJ daily Policy Diary e-newsletter, August 7

John Fund has it wrong. It’s not the altitude; it’s the attitude. People are concerned about the federal debt's quadruptling under Obama and a spendthift Congress.

The attitude is: Congressional Democrats know best, and Republicans and grassroot Americans know least. This attitude is reflected in Charles M. Blow’s August 8 New York Times column, “Health Care Hullabaloo,” in which he derides Republicans for organizing disruptions of town health care meetings, “Let’s face it. This is no party of Einstein’s. Really it isn’t. A Pew poll last month found that only 6 percent of scientists said they were Republicans.” For me, this qualifies as a blow-hard comment.

Eric Hoffer, 1901-1983, the longshoreman philosopher, never bought the claims of political intellectuals to be for the common man, and said, “whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed and wasted at will." He never felt the president should be an intellectual, because such a president could never truly identify with the common man.

Presumably Democrats are health reform rocket scientists. Unfortunately Americans don’t agree with Mr. Blow’s appraisal. The latest Quinnipiac poll indicates only 39% approve of Obama’s handling of health reform.

The readers of Real Clear Politics, who are evenly split between Democrats and Rebublicans agree. Here is the readers' ratings.


Congressional Approval

- Approve 30.6%
- Disapprove 60.8%
- Spread -30.2%

Direction of Country

- Right Direction 38.6%
- Wrong Track 54.6%
- Spread -16.0%

So what’s wrong with Congress’ attitude towards health reform?

According to pollster Scott Rasmussen (“Health Reform and the Polls,” WSJ, August 7).

Most voters approach the health-care reform debate fearing they have more to lose than to gain…most voters are skeptical about the government’s ability do anything well. While the president says his plan will reduce costs, 53% believe it will have the opposite effect…And 50% fear that if Congress passes health-care reform, it will lead to a decline in the quality of care.

As the Democrats scramble to pass a health-care reform bill by the fall, they appear to have two choices. One is to stick with broad outlines of the plan that has been laid out by various congressional committees..The other option would be to pass small scale reform and declare victory.

Before they declare victory, Democrats would be wise to trust the American people who prefer incremental reform to Obamacare as now defined, and to give a little more respect for Republican minds. They may not be Einsteins, but they sense how the people feel.