Ok, excuse me if I seem to be a little confused here. Nearly every poll I see these days has 'big government' Barry “Almighty” leading 'smaller government' Mitt Romney. So imagine my surprise when I read about a recent survey conducted by a couple of reliably left-leaning organizations, the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation. This most recent survey of 3,130 American adults was conducted between July 25 and August 5 and it claims to have discovered that large majorities of Americans actually favor a smaller federal government. These same folks also seem to think that the government controls too much of our daily lives. Imagine that! And what makes this survey’s results even a bit more startling is the fact that only 25 percent of those people polled were Republicans, while another 34 percent were Democrats and 34 percent were Independents. So you can understand my confusion here.
The poll asked: "Would you say you favor a smaller federal government with fewer services, or larger federal government with many services?" Among all those polled, 55 percent said they wanted a smaller federal government and 40 percent said they wanted a larger federal government. Among just the registered voters in the poll, 58 percent said they wanted a smaller federal government and 37 percent said they wanted a larger federal government. The poll also asked: "Do you personally agree or disagree with the following statement. Government controls too much of our daily lives." Among all those polled, 60 percents said they agreed and 39 percent said they disagreed. Among just the registered voters in the survey, the results were almost identical, with 60 percent saying they agreed and 38 percent saying they disagreed. That's a fairly substantial margin.
So, if we actually do have a majority of people in this country who favor a smaller federal government, just who in the Hell is it that thinks Barry should be re-elected for four more years. Because I gotta tell ya, if Barry does manage to get himself re-elected, when it comes to growing the government, you ain't seen nothin yet! In the accompanying news story about this survey, the Post said that the results show a deep partisan divide in America. "Partisan polarization presents a potentially insurmountable barrier to governing for whomever wins the White House in November," the Post said. But I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. Because if it's true and a majority of American's do favor smaller government, then I would think, that that opinion would favor those who would be trying to bring that about. Now of course, Republicans would need to gain control of then Senate and maintain control of the House.
So where does that put us as we approach the election? Well at first glance you would think that such an opinion would not bode well for Barry and would actually favor Romney. But at least up to this point, that's not what the poll, or at least most of them, are telling us. The bottom line here is that people are going to have to decide one way or the other just how much power they want their government to possess. And I for one would like that to be the absolute minimum. I think those who we see as being in favor of a more powerful government, most likely suffer from something like jealousy, in that they simply aren't willing to work as hard as others so that they can acquire the finer things in life. They simply want the government to take from those who work hard and give to those who are simply lazy. I really don't see any other way to explain it. So how will the next election turn out? Anybody's guess.
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