What people think about government
Most simply don’t trust it, a poll finds, but many appreciate specific programs.
WASHINGTON — Americans have low levels of trust in the federal government and most find it poorly run and wasteful in general, even as they give high marks to many of its specific programs, according to a new poll.
Nearly 6 in 10 respondents said they felt “frustrated” by the government and 1 in 5 described themselves as “angry” toward it, according to the large-scale survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
About 3 in 4 said government is “pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves” rather than “run for the benefit of all the people,” and a similar share said the influence of money on the country’s politics had increased.
Only about 1 in 5 respondents said they felt they could trust the government in Washington to do the right thing most of the time. Large majorities had a low opinion of the honesty of the country’s elected officials. And in recent years, many have also soured on the judgment of fellow citizens.
As recently as the mid-1990s, large majorities in both parties and among selfdescribed independents said they had “trust and confidence in the political wisdom of the American people.”
That view started to decline in the early 2000s, but took a sharp drop starting late in the George W. Bush administration, as partisan tensions mounted. That decline has continued through the Obama administration years, and today only slightly more than one-third of Democrats and Republicans and fewer than onequarter of independents say they have confidence in the public’s wisdom.
And yet, despite those measures of unhappiness about government and politics in general, large majorities have positive views about much that the government does in particular.
About 3 out of 4 respondents said they felt that the government did a good job on issues that bipartisan majorities considered important, including ensuring safe food and medicine, responding to natural disasters and setting safety rules for workplaces.
The survey also found that nearly 3 in 4 respondents said the government was doing a good job “keeping the country safe from terrorism.” The survey, which interviewed about 6,000 adult Americans, was taken over several weeks of the fall, before the terrorist attacks this month in Paris.
Of 13 major government functions the survey asked about, majorities gave positive performance ratings to 10 of them, the survey found.
The biggest exception was managing the immigration system. Majorities of Democrats and Republicans agreed that the government handled immigration poorly, with only 28% saying the government was doing a good job.
Large majorities gave positive marks to a long list of government agencies, starting with the Postal Service, which, despite being a butt of many jokes in popular culture, gets a positive rating from 84% of Americans.
The Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI and the Social Security Administration all received favorable marks from large majorities of respondents. The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Security Agency generated less agreement, but for both, 52% of respondents rated the agencies positively, with about 1 in 3 giving thumbs down.
The biggest exceptions were, not surprisingly, the Internal Revenue Service and the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs, both of which more than half of respondents viewed negatively. In the case of the VA, that marked a sharp drop from the high marks it received in previous years.
Respondents were evenly divided in their view of the Justice Department, and by a small majority had a negative view of the Education Department. In both cases, Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP were far more negative than Democrats and those who lean in their direction.
A similar sharp partisan divide exists on some questions of what the government should do and whether it is doing its job well.
More than 8 in 10 Democrats said the government should play a major role in ensuring access to healthcare, for example. By contrast, one-third of Republicans said they felt that way. A similar divide exists on whether the government should play a major role in helping people get out of poverty.
A somewhat smaller, but still noticeable, partisan split exists on whether the federal government should play a major role in protecting the environment, strengthening the economy, ensuring access to quality education, guaranteeing a basic income to those older than 65 and setting workplace standards.
On each of those issues, about 8 in 10 Democrats said they saw a major role for the federal government and between half and two-thirds of Republicans agreed.
Partisan gaps loomed largest among people who are most engaged in politics — those who vote regularly and pay attention to public affairs. About half of Republicans and GOP leaners and one-third of Democrats and Democratic leaners met that test for engagement.
On nearly all measures, politically engaged Republicans were significantly more conservative than Republicans in general. Politically engaged Democrats were somewhat more liberal than other Democrats, although the gap was smaller than on the GOP side.
Nine in 10 politically engaged Democrats, for example, said the government should have a major role in ensuring access to healthcare. Among less engaged Democrats, about 8 in 10 agreed. Among engaged Republicans, just 1 in 5 said they saw a major role for government in ensuring healthcare access, but nearly half of the less engaged Republicans said they did.
About 4 in 10 politically engaged Republicans described themselves as “angry” toward the federal government. Donald Trump does well among that group, with 64% of them saying they see him favorably, the poll found. Among those who do not describe themselves as angry with the government, 48% said they had a favorable view of Trump.