The left will dismis this as crackpot speak.

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100419/D9F64DD80.html

Apr 19, 8:04 AM (ET)

By LIZ SIDOTI





WASHINGTON (AP) - America's "Great Compromiser" Henry Clay called
government
"the great trust," but most Americans today have little faith in
Washington's
ability to deal with the nation's problems.

Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half
century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10
Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it
can solve America's ills, the survey found.

The survey illustrates the ominous situation President Barack Obama and the
Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable
congressional majorities in this fall's elections. Midterm prospects are
typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and
lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

The survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust
Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are
basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively affects
their daily lives, a sentiment that's grown over the past dozen years.

This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in
fierce protests this past week.

"The government's been lying to people for years. Politicians make promises to
get elected, and when they get elected, they don't follow through," says Cindy
Wanto, 57, a registered Democrat from Nemacolin, Pa., who joined several
thousand for a rally in Washington on April 15 - the tax filing deadline.
"There's too much government in my business. It was a problem before Obama, but
he's certainly not helping fix it."

Majorities in the survey call Washington too big and too powerful, and say it's
interfering too much in state and local matters. The public is split over
whether the government should be responsible for dealing with critical problems
or scaled back to reduce its power, presumably in favor of personal
responsibility.

About half say they want a smaller government with fewer services, compared
with roughly 40 percent who want a bigger government providing more. The public
was evenly divided on those questions long before Obama was elected. Still, a
majority supported the Obama administration exerting greater control over the
economy during the recession.

"Trust in government rarely gets this low," said Andrew Kohut,
director of the
nonpartisan center that conducted the survey. "Some of it's backlash against
Obama. But there are a lot of other things going on."

And, he added: "Politics has poisoned the well."

The survey found that Obama's policies were partly to blame for a rise in
distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president
orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787
billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.

But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the
electorate's hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President
George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of
all political leanings.

"I want an honest government. This isn't an honest government. It hasn't been
for some time," said self-described independent David Willms, 54, of Sarasota,
Fla. He faulted the White House and Congress under both parties.

The poll was based on four surveys done from March 11 to April 11 on landline
and cell phones. The largest survey, of 2,500 adults, has a margin of sampling
error of 2.5 percentage points; the others, of about 1,000 adults each, has a
margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.

In the short term, the deepening distrust is politically troubling for Obama
and Democrats. Analysts say out-of-power Republicans could well benefit from
the bitterness toward Washington come November, even though voters blame them,
too, for partisan gridlock that hinders progress.

In a democracy built on the notion that citizens have a voice and a right to
exercise it, the long-term consequences could prove to be simply unhealthy - or
truly debilitating. Distrust could lead people to refuse to vote or get
involved in their own communities. Apathy could set in, or worse - violence.

Democrats and Republicans both accept responsibility and fault the other party
for the electorate's lack of confidence.

"This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty," said Sen. Claire
McCaskill, D-Mo. She pointed to "nonsense" that goes on during
campaigns that
leads to "promises made but not promises kept." Still, she added:
"Distrust of
government is an all-American activity. It's something we do as Americans and
there's nothing wrong with it."

Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who won a long-held Democratic Senate seat in
Massachusetts in January by seizing on public antagonism toward Washington,
said: "It's clear Washington is broken. There's too much partisan bickering to
be able to solve the problems people want us to solve."

And, he added: "It's going to be reflected in the elections this fall."

But Matthew Dowd, a top strategist on Bush's re-election campaign who now shuns
the GOP label, says both Republicans and Democrats are missing the mark.

"What the country wants is a community solution to the problems but not
necessarily a federal government solution," Dowd said. Democrats are
emphasizing the federal government, while Republicans are saying it's about the
individual; neither is emphasizing the right combination to satisfy Americans,
he said.

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