Rasmussen
What
They Told Us: Reviewing Last
Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, December 22, 2012
37%
Say U.S. Heading in Right
Direction
Generic
Congressional Ballot:
Democrats 46%, Republicans 38%
Investor
Confidence Reaches
10-Month High
‘Twas
the week before Christmas,
and the question remains: Will taxes go up, or will they stay just the
same?
Voter
confidence is fading that
Congress and the president will reach a deal to avoid the December 31
“fiscal
cliff” of big tax hikes and automatic across-the-board spending cuts.
But
voters still see President Obama as more willing than congressional
Republicans
to accept a compromise, and that’s a big problem for the GOP.
As
the fiscal cliff deadline
approaches, Obama continues to enjoy some of the highest job approval
ratings
of his presidency. On the other hand, House Speaker John Boehner has
now passed
his Democratic predecessor Nancy Pelosi to become the least-liked major
congressional leader, a title Pelosi has held for several years.
Obama
has turned the fiscal cliff
issue into a debate about fairness. Overall, voters are evenly divided
as to
whether or not the economy is fair. Half believe it’s fair to
lower-income
Americans, only 41% think it is fair to the middle class.
Boehner
was forced to pull his Plan
B to extend the Bush tax cuts for all but millionaires off the House
floor late
Thursday because he didn't even have enough votes in his own party to
pass it.
Scott Rasmussen explains in his latest weekly newspaper column,
Boehner's 'Plan
B' Hurt the GOP , that Republicans continue to lose the tax fairness
issue
because “That's the issue Obama is talking about and Republicans are
ignoring.”
He adds, “By agreeing to raise taxes on anyone, Boehner has antagonized
his
base. By refusing to raise taxes on enough upper-income Americans,
Boehner has
antagonized those in the middle.”
Republican
congressional leaders
had given ground in the fiscal cliff negotiations by proposing to raise
taxes
on those who make more than a million dollars a year, but most voters
don’t
think that goes far enough. Even if that were passed, 59% think
Congress also
should raise taxes on those who earn between $250,000 and a million
dollars a
year.
Fewer
voters than ever think the
United States is overtaxed. Forty-six percent (46%) still believe the
nation is
overtaxed, but nearly as many (42%) disagree. As recently as April
2010, 66% of
voters felt the country was overtaxed, but that figure was down to 56%
by March
of this year.
One
factor that many in Washington
blame for the gridlock in the fiscal cliff talks is an anti-tax pledge
signed
by most Republican members of Congress. Voters are evenly divided about
candidates who sign a pledge not to raise taxes. However, Republicans
who are
represented by a pledge signer overwhelmingly want their congressman to
honor
that pledge.
Democrats
continue to lead
Republicans on the Generic Congressional Ballot as they have every week
since
Election Day. Prior to that time, Republicans had consistently held a
modest
advantage with few exceptions every week since June 2009.
The
fiscal cliff negotiations will
be a hot topic on this weekend’s edition of Scott Rasmussen’s new
television
show, What America Thinks, aired on over 60 stations nationwide. Scott
will
talk with Republican Congressman Tom Cole on if and where his party is
willing
to compromise. The show also will examine how Americans are reacting to
the
horrific elementary school massacre in Connecticut and what they think
the
response should be.
A
plurality (48%) of adults
believes more action to treat mental health issues will do the most to
prevent
incidents like the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-seven
percent
(27%) think stricter gun control laws will do the most to prevent such
shootings, while 15% put the emphasis on limits on violent movies and
video
games. But just 20% feel that schools can ever be made completely safe
against
violence like the December 14 incident.
Americans
are now evenly divided
over the need for stronger anti-gun laws. That marks the highest level
of support
yet for stricter gun control. Fifty-nine percent (59%) think Congress
and the
president are likely to create those tougher laws, but just 22% say
it’s Very
Likely. They're much less confident that limits will be placed on
violent
movies and video games.
Most
Americans favor a ban on the
sale of semi-automatic and assault-type weapons, but just 23% think it
would be
good for the country if only government officials such as the police
and
military personnel were allowed to have guns. Only 26% would feel safer
moving
to a neighborhood where nobody was allowed to own a gun versus one
where you
could have a gun for your own protection.
On
a more cheerful note, the
Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes, which measure daily confidence
among
both groups, are up slightly at week’s end from three months ago.
At
the same time, there has been a
sharp increase in short-term housing market confidence over the past
month.
Thirty-one percent (31%) believe their home’s value will go up over the
next
year, the highest level of confidence since April 2010. Just 19% expect
a
decline.
Twenty-one
percent (21%) of
American think now is a good time for someone in their area to be
selling a
house. Anemic as that sounds, it’s the highest level of confidence in
the local
housing market recorded in regular surveys since April 2009.
Interestingly,
homeowners are slightly less convinced than others that now is a good
time to
sell.
It
doesn’t necessarily bode well
for the housing market, though, that 46% of Americans predict that they
will be
paying higher interest rates a year from today.
More
than 15,000 people
participated in this year’s first-ever Rasmussen Challenge, with an
average of
2,900 people playing weekly. And now we have a winner – Bill Kerins of
Bucks
County, PA. He wins a 16G third generation iPad with WiFi, valued at
approximately $500. Given its success with the Rasmussen Reports
audience, the
Rasmussen Challenge will resume in 2013.
New contest details will be announced
soon…
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