With President Joe Biden increasing this size of government much larger than FDR’s New Deal or even LBJ’s Great Society, a new poll from Gallup shows that most Americans do not like the continued expansion of the federal government backed by Democrats in Washington.
A majority of those surveyed–52 percent–believe the government has too much involvement in our lives and half of them support lower taxes and fewer government services. More than two-fifths of those surveyed–43 percent–said the government needs to do more to address the country’s problems.
Gallup noted this is a contrast compared to a similar poll from last year which found that most Americans–54 percent–said the government should do more while 41 percent disagreed.
Last year, independent voters wanted the government to play a bigger role, mostly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But independents have changed since then. In 2020, 56% percent of independents wanted the government to do more to solve problems. The new poll shows only 38 percent of independents want the government to do more to solve the country’s problems.
Over the last 30 years, Gallup stressed there have been two times when Americans supported having the government play a bigger role: in 2020 during the pandemic and in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks.
Turning to lower taxes, Gallup noted that the last time a majority–56 percent—supported fewer taxes was in 2011, during the Obama presidency.
Half of independent voters–50 percent–said they prefer lower taxes and fewer services. But Democrats offer a different story with only 19 percent of those surveyed supporting lower taxes and fewer services.
A plurality of those surveyed–43 percent–said there is too much government regulation of business and industry.
There is a major partisan divided on whether or not the government has too much power with 82 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents saying yes while 63 percent of Democrats think the government has the right amount of power.
The poll, which was released last week, of 1,005 Americans was taken from Sept. 1 through Sept. 17 and had a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.
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