A New Low for All Three Branches of Government

By Yuval Rosenberg

We hope you had a good holiday weekend. Here’s a bit of
news that most readers will likely welcome: crude oil prices

fell below $100 a barrel Tuesday for the first
time in nearly two months, and wholesale gas futures plunged almost
10% on the day. That may be the silver lining in a dark cloud,
though, as the price change is rooted in economic pessimism,
reflecting growing concerns that the economy is headed for a
recession.

Here’s what else is going on.

Poll of the Day: A New Low for All Three Branches of
Government

Now that the July 4th fireworks have flamed out, the pollsters
at Gallup are providing some details about how Americans’
confidence in our major institutions has fizzled over the past
year.

Of the 16 institutions Gallup asked about — ranging from
Congress to the Supreme Court, public schools to the presidency,
the medical system to the news media — 11 saw Americans say they
are much less confident than they were a year ago.

All three branches of the federal government
dropped to new lows in this year’s poll.

The presidency saw the most precipitous drop, 15 percentage
points, which Gallup says matches the 15-point plunge in President
Joe Biden’s approval rating since June 2021. Just 23% of those
surveyed say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of
confidence in the presidency.

The Supreme Court saw the second largest decline, a drop of 11
percentage points to 25% — and that was as of late June, before the
court formally announced its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and
issued a controversial decision on gun laws.

Confidence in Congress fell by 5 percentage points — a smaller
drop, yes, but Congress was already at the bottom of the list, at
12% confidence last year, yet managed to fall to 7% this year.

Small business (68%) and the military (64%) are the only
institutions to see a majority of Americans express confidence in
them. Organized labor is the only institution that didn’t see a
decline in confidence from last year.

“Five other institutions are at their lowest points in at least
three decades of measurement,” Gallup reports, “including the
church or organized religion (31%), newspapers (16%), the criminal
justice system (14%), big business (14%) and the police.”

The Gallup readings are in line with those from the latest

Monmouth University poll, which finds that just
10% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction
while 88% say it is on the wrong track — the lowest such reading
dating back to 2013. And 42% of Americans say they are struggling
to maintain their financial position, the highest such reading
since Monmouth started asking the question five years ago.

That poll also finds that Americans see the federal government
as providing little help. “A majority of 57% say that the actions
of the federal government over the past six months have hurt their
family when it comes to their most important concern,” Monmouth
reports, noting that this is the first time a majority has said
that federal government has hurt them where it matters most. “The
results also indicate little optimism about the future – just 23%
expect that future government actions over the next few years will
help improve their family’s top concern while 45% say Washington
will hurt them. One year ago, that response was basically flipped
(40% expected to be helped and 34% expected to be hurt).”

The bottom line: “Confidence in institutions is unlikely
to improve until the economy gets better,” Gallup’s Jeffrey M.
Jones writes, “but it is unclear if confidence will ever get back
to the levels Gallup measured in decades past, even with an
improved economy.”

GOP States Ramp Up Efforts to Use Pandemic Aid for Tax
Cuts

When Democrats pressed to provide hundreds of billions of
dollars in pandemic aid money to states early last year, some in
the party forced a late change that
prohibited the relief funds from being used to
offset new tax cuts.

The fear was that states might not use the aid money to fight
the pandemic or keep workers on the job — and that any reduction in
revenue from new tax cuts could leave states worse off later on,
when federal dollars weren’t available to plug budget holes.

Yet the provision drew immediate backlash from Republicans,
including legal challenges — and, as The Washington Post’s Tony
Romm reports, the battles between the GOP and the Biden White House
over that measure continue to escalate:

“GOP leaders have challenged the tax cut prohibition in
federal courtrooms and state capitals. Attorneys general in 21
states have fought to overturn the Biden administration’s policy,
federal court filings show, backed at times by powerful groups like
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose corporate members have lobbied
conservative-leaning states to reduce their tax bills. In nearly
every case, these legal efforts have prevailed, hamstringing the
Treasury Department while opening the door for states to pursue
their own tax cuts. …”
“The spending decisions have troubled some fiscal experts, who
fear that the push for aggressive tax cuts this year could leave
state budgets lacking much-needed revenue in the event of a
recession. The moves also have flummoxed local advocates, who say
that every federal dollar devoted to lowering tax bills is one less
available for targeted relief — from improvements in housing to
investments in aging infrastructure.”


Read the full story at The Washington Post.

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