Eighty Percent

Horrible story full of all the wrong conclusions from the Associated Press:

Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found.

Of course the government can't solve our problems. Our government creates our problems and is our problem.

This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.

Fierce? Name one city where there was a riot or a death or cars or buildings burned at a tea party. "Spirited" would be a better descriptor here.

Majorities in the survey call Washington too big and too powerful, and say it's interfering too much in state and local matters. The public is split over whether the government should be responsible for dealing with critical problems or scaled back to reduce its power, presumably in favor of personal responsibility.

About half say they want a smaller government with fewer services, compared with roughly 40 percent who want a bigger government providing more. The public was evenly divided on those questions long before Obama was elected. Still, a majority supported the Obama administration exerting greater control over the economy during the recession.

What a load of crap. The conclusion of the second paragraph doesn't support the findings of the first paragraph at all. If we, as a people, want government to back out of our lives then why would would we want bigger government and who, exactly, supported Obama's brand of government "spend us out of debt" economics?

The survey found that Obama's policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.

Yeah, but it has a lot more to do with the constant encroachment of the government into our lives that just never seems to stop. Taxes. Fees. Regulations. Guidelines. Mandates. Laws. Forced certifications. Forced buying of certain products. It just keeps growing. It's not just about Obama and it's not just about Congress and it's not about George Bush.

But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the electorate's hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings.

Dammit, AP! Listen! It's freaking not about George Bush!!!! Quit whipping that dead horse already!!!! Oh, and beeteedub, Bush didn't cause the recession - the Congress did by mandating that lenders had to loan money to people that couldn't repay it and stupid people in the US did by buying more house than they could afford on credit. People not being able to repay those loans - you know, the Mortgage Crisis - caused a lending and credit crisis and that caused the market to drop and that caused the recession.

"This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. She pointed to "nonsense" that goes on during campaigns that leads to "promises made but not promises kept." Still, she added: "Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It's something we do as Americans and there's nothing wrong with it."

Memo to politicians: quit making promises to get elected. Promise to balance the budget and keep us safe from outside forces, not from ourselves, and be done with it. Quit promising the moon. That's how you're making all this worse.

Morons.