NYC Letter: Doing Less With More

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Congress has just gotten a raise. Luckily the honorable members are not held hostage to merit pay.

CONGRESSIONAL PERFORMANCE
Approval Of Congress Drops To Single Digits Again

December 19, 2008 (Rasmussen) - The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters found that only nine percent (9%) give Congress good or excellent ratings, while 54% give the legislature poor marks. Just one-out-of-50 voters (2%) think Congress is doing an excellent job. ... This is now the fifth time congressional ratings have fallen below 10% since June 1.

Other findings:

• Only 14% of Democratic voters rate the performance of the Congress led by their own party as good or excellent, compared to five percent (5%) of Republicans and six percent (6%) of unaffiliated voters. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats say the legislators are doing a poor job, and 69% of Republicans and 63% of unaffiliateds agree.

• The latest survey found that just 14% of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping people than their own careers, down from 23% in November. Most voters (71%) say the opposite.

• One-in-three voters (34%) believes most members of Congress are corrupt, while 39% disagree. ... A separate Rasmussen survey released last week found that [Illinois] voters view politicians as being more corrupt than CEO’s of major corporations by a 48% to 25% margin.