By SUZANNE METTLER
Ithaca, N.Y. DON’T take at face value the claims that Americans dislike government. Sure, a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 56 percent of Americans said they wanted smaller government and fewer services. Tea Party activists, the most vocal citizens of our time, powerfully amplify those demands. Yet the reality is that the vast majority of Americans have at some point relied on government programs — and valued them — even though they often fail to recognize that government is the source of the assistance.
A 2008 poll of 1,400 Americans by the Cornell Survey Research Institute found that when people were asked whether they had “ever used a government social program,” 57 percent said they had not. Respondents were then asked whether they had availed themselves of any of 21 different federal policies, including Social Security, unemployment insurance, the home-mortgage-interest deduction and student loans. It turned out that 94 percent of those who had denied using programs had benefited from at least one; the average respondent had used four.
2 comments:
There are so damned many government programs, the chances are pretty good each of us benefit from a large number of them, unknowingly. However if I was receiving a government check (like Social Security) one would think I would know! However on the average most Amerikans have not been proving themselves too smart as of late.
Government IS too big! I could easily have become a Libertarian until the TParty was invented. Now all bets are off. I don't disagree with "some" of their claims but not their methods. Even most of the claims now are way off base. My gripe with the TParty is when they state opinion as fact. The true facts get lost for the sake of maintaining ideology.
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