Almost 70 percent of likely U.S. voters polled in a recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey said that income inequality was at least a somewhat serious problem facing the nation. Of that, 45 percent identified the issue as a “very serious” problem.
Hearteningly, a majority of the poll’s respondents said that less government-not more-would go farther in “clos[ing] the income gap in America.”
To be exact, 59 percent of those surveyed said that they preferred “less government involvement in the economy over more government action.” This compares quite favorably to those who thought that “increased government involvement in the economy would do more to close the income gap,” which totaled just 33 percent.
Interestingly but perhaps not surprisingly, there is a striking divide on the role of government in closing the income gap between the Political Class and Mainstream America. According to the poll, 61 percent of those identified to be in the Political Class were in favor of more government action as the solution, while 70 percent of Mainstream voters favored just the opposite approach, believing that less government action was the best way to stimulate the economy and close the gap.
While we have a long way to go to reverse our nation’s current fortunes, the poll at least bodes well that Americans understand that big government is not the solution to the nation’s economic ills. In the words of President Reagan: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
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