Rasmussen
What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, July 05, 2014

Generic Congressional Ballot: Democrats 40%, Republicans 38%
26% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction

52% Consumers, 47% Investors say U.S. Economy in Recession

The separation of powers between Congress, the courts and the president is key to the Founding Fathers’ constitutional blueprint for America, but President Obama is chafing at the restraints this separation is putting on his agenda.

Most voters continue to believe, as they have for years, that gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in this country. But if Congress passes a comprehensive immigration reform plan like the one championed by the president, only 33% think it’s even somewhat likely that the federal government will actually secure the border, with seven percent (7%) who say it’s Very Likely.

This skepticism, compounded by the belief many voters have that the latest crisis on the border involving the dumping of young illegal immigrants has been encouraged by the Obama administration, has killed the chances for immigration reform in Congress this year. After being told that by House Speaker John Boehner, the president announced this past Monday that he was beginning “a new effort to fix as much of our own immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.”

At week’s end, following two U.S. Supreme Court rulings upholding a religious exemption from Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate, the president is reportedly considering executive-only action to pay for free contraceptive care for women.

Voters by a 49% to 39% margin agree with the Supreme Court that business owners should be able to opt out of the new health care law’s requirement that they provide health insurance with free contraception if it violates their religious beliefs. Most voters continue to have an unfavorable opinion of the health care law and strongly believe consumers should have a choice on how much health insurance they want to have and want to pay for.

Critics of the president are already complaining about the extent of his executive orders, so with him now talking about going it alone without the will of Congress and about working around the rulings of the Supreme Court, it’s no surprise that a plurality (44%) of voters think Obama has been less faithful to the U.S. Constitution than most other presidents. Just 35% believe the president should take action alone if Congress does not approve the initiatives he has proposed. Fifty-seven percent (57%) think it is more important to preserve our constitutional system of checks and balances than it is for government to operate efficiently.

Views of the Executive Branch aren’t helped either by the increasing questions about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups opposed to the president. Although the IRS’ activities have been under investigation for over a year now, the agency recently announced that it has destroyed many of the e-mails related to the targeting of these groups as part of its routine procedures. But 71% of voters think it is likely the IRS deliberately destroyed the e-mails to hide evidence of criminal activity, with 53% who consider it Very Likely. Sixty-six percent (66%) now feel the IRS employees involved should be jailed or fired, up from 57% in May of last year when the abuses were first exposed...

Read the rest of the article with links at Rasmussen