Disapproval Rate for Congress at Record 82% After Debt Talks

*****All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in
Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the
way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.***********

Disapproval Rate for Congress at Record 82% After Debt Talks

The debate over raising the debt ceiling, which brought the nation to
the brink of default, has sent disapproval of Congress to its highest
level on record and left most Americans saying that creating jobs
should now take priority over cutting spending, according to the
latest New York Times/CBS News

A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is
handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the
question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate
led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.

More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-
ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about
doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that
the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.

Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the
difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama
and the Democrats, the poll found.

The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled
said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in
Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the
way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.

The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the
debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent
approved.

The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake
of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by
40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according
to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the
movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43
percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on
the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.

“I’m real disappointed in Congress,” Ron Raggio, 54, a florist from
Vicksburg, Miss., said in a follow-up interview. “They can’t sit down
and agree about what’s best for America. It’s all politics.”

There were signs that the repeated Republican calls for more spending
cuts were resonating with the public: 44 percent of those polled said
the cuts in the debt-ceiling agreement did not go far enough, 29
percent said they were about right and only 15 percent said they went
too far. More than a quarter of the Democrats polled said that the
cuts in the agreement did not go far enough.

But by a ratio of more than two to one, Americans said that creating
jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts.

Though Republicans prevented tax increases from being included in the
debt-ceiling deal, half of those polled said the agreement should have
included increased tax revenue, while 44 percent said it should have
relied on cuts alone. That issue is likely to be revisited soon:
Congress is preparing to appoint a special committee to recommend ways
to reduce the deficit. Sixty-three percent of those polled said that
they supported raising taxes on households that earn more than
$250,000 a year, as Mr. Obama has sought to do — including majorities
of Democrats (80 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans
(52 percent).

The poll found that Mr. Obama was emerging from the crisis less
bruised than the Republicans in Congress.

The president’s overall job approval rating remained relatively
stable, with 48 percent approving of the way he handles his job as
president and 47 percent disapproving — down from the bump up he
received in the spring after the killing of Osama bin Laden, but in
line with how he has been viewed for nearly a year. By contrast,
Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, saw his disapproval
rating shoot up 16 points since April: 57 percent of those polled now
disapprove of the way he is handling his job, while only 30 percent
approve.

Americans said that they trusted Mr. Obama to make the right decisions
about the economy more than the Republicans in Congress, by 47 percent
to 33 percent. They were evenly divided on the question of whether he
showed “strong qualities of leadership” during the negotiations, with
49 percent saying he did and 48 percent saying he did not. And they
were still more likely to blame President George W. Bush for the bulk
of the nation’s deficit: 44 percent said that the deficit was mostly
caused by the Bush administration, 15 percent said it was mostly
caused by the Obama administration and 15 percent blamed Congress.

The growing fears about the economy — amid a sinking stock market and
warnings that the nation risks sliding back into recession — were
reflected in the nationwide telephone poll, which was conducted
Tuesday and Wednesday with 960 adults and has a margin of sampling
error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The number of Americans who rated the economy “very bad” was the
highest it had been in a year. But there was uncertainty about whether
the debt-ceiling deal would help or hurt the economy: nearly half said
it would have no effect, while 24 percent said it would make the
economy worse and 22 percent said it would improve it.

Americans were evenly divided on the parameters of the debt-ceiling
deal, in which Congress agreed to allow the federal government to
borrow the money needed to pay its current obligations and avoid
default on the condition that it reduce the deficit by at least $2.1
trillion over the next 10 years. Over all, 46 percent of those polled
approved of the deal, while 45 percent disapproved of it.

Most of those polled said that the spending cuts included either did
not go far enough or were about right. But with the nation’s
unemployment rate at a stubborn 9.2 percent, 62 percent of those
polled said that creating jobs should be the priority.

“Cutting spending is important, but getting people back to work is
more important,” said Diane Sherrell, 56, a Republican from Erwin,
N.C. “If people are working, they are more productive. There is less
crime, there is less depression, there is less divorce. There are less
hospital and medical bills. If you put people back to work, you are
cutting spending.”

Stanley Oland, 62, a Republican from Kalispell, Mont., said that the
government needed new jobs to generate the economic activity and the
revenue it requires.

“That revenue supports the basic foundation for the economy, creates
more jobs and stimulates the economy,” he said. “Unless you have
working people you don’t have revenue from taxes. If you cut spending,
jobs will be eliminated and you won’t get any revenue. Every dollar
spent creates jobs.”

Marjorie Connelly, Allison Kopicki and Marina Stefan contributed
reporting.