Only 21% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed
The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.
However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November. Just 27% believe their own representative in Congress is the best person for the job.
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Among voters under 40, 25% believe government has the consent of the governed. That compares to 19% of those ages 50 to 64 and 16% of the nation’s senior citizens.
Those who earn more than $100,000 a year are more narrowly divided on the question, but those with lower incomes overwhelming reject the notion that today’s government has the consent from which to derive its just authority. Those with the lowest incomes are the most skeptical.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans say the government does not have the consent of the governed, and that view is shared by 65% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties. A plurality of Democrats (44%) agrees, but 32% of those in President Obama’s party believe the government has the necessary consent.
From an ideological perspective, most moderate and conservative voters say the government lacks the consent of the governed. Liberals are evenly divided.
In his new book, In Search of Self-Governance, Scott Rasmussen observes that the American people are “united in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers.” He adds that “the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and the politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.”
The book has earned positive reviews from Larry Sabato, Pat Caddell, Bill Kristol, Joe Trippi and others. In Search of Self-Governance is available from Rasmussen Reports and at Amazon.com.
Sixty percent (60%) of voters think that neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today. Thirty-five percent (35%) say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that an entirely new political party is needed to represent the American people.
Nearly half of all voters believe that people randomly selected from the phone book could do as good a job as the current Congress.
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About Mark Lloyd
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We’re giving a lot of lip service to “PRINCIPLES” in poliics this year. But we’ve
forgotten the FIRST PRINCIPLE of politics: “Thou shalt have no gods before GOD.” You
say, “I believe, and I pray for salvation, forgiveness and mercy, and I tithe”, but you
don’t understand. Our Founding Fathers wrote that “All men are created equal .. endowed
with .. inalienable rights .. by their Creator.” George Orwell, in his famous novel
“1984″ wrote “Some pigs are more equal than others.” Of course he was wrong. But if he
was wrong, then why do we let money buy political power ? That just makes the pig with
the most money, the “most equal.”
Here’s my thinking. Tell me what is wrong with it. In biblical times, the notion of
money was “god-like”. In fact, was not “mammon” the “god” which most
often “got before” the one true “GOD” ? Read Matthew (6:24) according to Webster’s
definition of “mammon”.
My sincere apologies to folks who are not religious. (We disagree, but save that for
another day.) This is not about trying to open a revival tent, or propose biblical law.
This is about the FIRST PRINCIPLE of politics: WE MUST NOT LET MONEY BUY POLITICAL
POWER. So we pass a law against bribery. Phooey. That’s just retail “buying.” What about
wholesale bribery? So we create a Federal Election Commission and track “donations?”
Think about it. The buying isn’t in the donating, its in the spending. When no single
politician can spend any more than any other, whether in riders to appropriations bills
(NONE!) so to send “pork” to his friends, or in campaign purchases of TV ads, or of
taxis that bring voters from the cemetery to the polls (etc) so to send him to Congress,
THEN and only THEN will we have prevented “mammon” from “getting before” the GOD who
says “All Men Are Created Equal.”
One candidate in the 5th District GoP primary race is touted as “the man who can
raise enough money to get elected.” He’s a good man; he has principles; he speaks truth;
he works hard. But he is riding a bus that is broken. It only runs if you put a nickle
in its meter. Money buys its power. In fact, of necessity, all of our candidates are
riding that bus, but some of them just are not “as equal”.
Most of our candidates promise to reform Congress by bringing back Constitutional
principles. We need them all to commit to restoring this FIRST PRINCIPLE of politics. In
the founding fathers’ days, when Doctors were paid with chickens, there wasn’t a lot of
worry about “mammon” taking over politics. Perhaps because you couldn’t put enough
chickens in a wagon to buy political power. Perhaps it was because many of our
forefathers, like Jefferson, were men of immense wealth. Most likely, it was because in
those days there was no way short of retail bribery on an unthinkable scale to spend
that wealth so to buy an election. THIS IS NOT SO TODAY.
Friends, I urge you to vote for this FIRST PRINCPLE in the 2010 elections if you
really want to reform Congress. Insist that your candidate not only commit to term
limits, and to single-purpose bills (without buy-vote riders), and to eliminating
“earmarks” and “pork barrel projects” (that buy constituents and pervert the
appropriations process), but also insist he commit to reforming the election process “by
prohibiting money from buying elected offices.”
Here’s how this can be done. Make laws that require pervasive tracking of all
spending by or on behalf of or in favor of electing every candidate. Give a spending
value to the benefit of being an incumbent (and having a website paid for by the
government to advertise himself, etc). Then CAP spending in every election to the same
fixed limit for each candidate. Let the candidates collect donations from anywhere and
anyone, but make them turn over ALL donations in excess of the spending limit to pay
down OUR national debt. After a dose or two of this castor-oil, what will win elections
will be IDEAS, PRINCIPLES, COMMITMENTS, TRACK RECORDS, INTELLIGENCE, PERSUASIVENESS, and
not “mammon” which gets before “All men are created equal” and makes candidate with the
most money the “most equal” pig (in Mr Orwell’s quaint terms.)
It may be necessary to have a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to FIX THIS PROBLEM. Why?
Because the Supreme Court has rendered decisions that say that “campaign spending” is
the same as “free speech” and must not be regulated. But the Supreme Court has been
wrong. The honored Justices once defended slavery, in which a land owner’s money made
slaves of black people. There is no more right to that abomination than there is to the
notion that a candidate’s campaign funds should be permitted to let him buy the power
(via elected office) to politically enslave all voters, which “power of political
slavery” has allowed elected representatives and Senators to run roughshod over
Constitutional Principles in Congress for decades.
And don’t believe any candidate who asks you to donate to their campaign without
making the above SPENDING-LIMITS commitment to this FIRST PRINCIPLE of politics: don’t
ever let money buy political power, or you will have signed your enslavement papers.
Well said. You have great points all.