Trust

Here's a post from Powerline:

Democrats and distrust

According to a Pew poll released Sunday night, trust in the federal government to do the "right thing" most of the time has fallen to a near all-time low of 22 percent. In its report on the poll, the Los Angeles Times notes that a comparable level of public skepticism has been reached only twice in the past -- from 1992 to 1995 (reaching a low of 17 percent trusting in government in the summer of 1994) and from 1978 to 1980 (bottoming out at 25 percent in 1980). Trust in government was never this low during the presidency of George W. Bush.

There is one particular characteristic that these periods, '78-'80, '92-'95, and the current day, all have uniquely in common. What is it?

They are the only years in the last 40 in which all 3 major chambers in Washington were controlled by Democrats: Jimmy Carter had a Democratic House for his entire term, then lost the White House and the Senate to Republicans in 1980. Bill Clinton had Democrats at both ends of the Capitol from the start of his presidency in 1991 until both houses switched hands in the 1994 elections. And now Obama has power across Washington.

What about the reverse? What was the mood towards government when the Republicans had full control? It only happened from the election of George W Bush in 2000 (taking office in 2001) until the Democrats took over the Capitol in the 2006 (2007) election. Here's a graph:



Wow, 2002 was the high point. Kinda like people liked the Republicans in control! (Remember too that this was after 9/11.) Most of that nice hump on the right hand side of the graph also corresponds to Republican control of the Capitol. Which they held from the 1994 elections (1995) until the Democratic takeover of both houses in the 2006 ones (2007). Of course, as the people realized that this particular bunch of Republicans could outspend a bar-full of drunken Democrats, trust in them waned too.

The other hump on the left corresponds to a period where the Democrats held the House, but the Republicans held the Senate and White House.

So people seem much happier about government when the Republicans get a say in things.

Is anyone surprised by that?