A recent Rasmussen poll asked this question of likely U.S. voters.
"Over the past ten years, has government spending in America gone up, down, or stayed the same?"
Incredibly, only 76% of U.S. voters recognize that government spending has gone up over the last 10 years. 9% actually thought it had gone down and 9% thought it was about the same. I guess the other 6% had absolutely not clue.
What was more interesting was that only 61% of Democrats answered the question correctly compared to 86% of Republicans! I don't now if this means that Republicans are just better informed to begin with or they become Republicans because they know the facts.
Here are the facts. The federal government increased spending $1.6 trillion over the last 10 years. In constant dollars, adjusted for inflation, we spent almost $1 trillion more in 2011 than we did in 2002. This is something that 39% of Democrats do not know? No wonder we are in trouble!
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| Federal Spending 2002-2011 Dollar Amounts in Billions |
Further evidence of the sorry state of political literacy is a news quiz that is available on the Pew Research Center website.
You can take the 13-question quiz yourself and see how you compare with 1,000 randomly selected adults who took the quiz. It takes less than 5 minutes. If you are going to do it, do it now without peeking as I am going to discuss the results below.
http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/
How did you do?
It looks like you can still rely on me to provide the shortest (and reliable) route to what you need to know as I answered all 13 questions correctly. Only 8% of adults aced the quiz.
The full report and an analysis is here. It is again a little scary. For example, only 53% of adults know that Republicans are more supportive in reducing the size of the federal government and only 58% know that Democrats want to reduce defense spending.
Democrats again had less knowledge than Republicans on the issues and facts. For example, only 46% of Democrats know that it is the Republicans who are supportive of reducing the size of the federal government. 76% of Republicans got this question right.
Only 58% of Democrats know that Franklin Roosevelt was a Democrat versus 73% of Republicans who knew the correct party for the New Dealer. On the other hand, 62% of Democrats know that Speaker John Boehner is Republican but 57% of Republicans don't know that he is.
Here is the breakdown of correct answers by Republicans and Democrats. The only good news for the Democrats is that Independents are even less clueless about the political parties. In some respects this is understandable but it is also troubling as these are the coveted "swing" voters. It raises questions about how they decide to "swing" with their votes from election to election.
The full survey had 17 questions compared to the 13 in the online survey.
I am a big believer in facts and data. However, as we have seen above, many people don't have the slightest idea what the facts are. Others are so attached to their beliefs (opinions) that they cannot believe the facts. This is called the Semmelweis Reflex which I just read about in the book, Demand, by Adrian Slywotzky.
Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor in the 1840's Vienna. He was perplexed about a high incidence of infant deaths from puerperal fever. He developed an innovative controlled experiment that showed that if doctors washed their hands with a disinfectant before interacting with patients there was a dramatic reduction in deaths.
However, this was before anyone knew anything about germs. Even though the facts were staring the other physicians right in their faces it did not comport to their long-held beliefs. It is human nature to reject new facts that contradict long-standing norms. Facts and data will normally lose when put up against strongly held beliefs. For many it is not "I will believe when I see it". It is "I'll see it when I believe it". No one would accept the findings of Semmelweis. He died in an asylum at age 47 without convincing anyone.
I don't know of any other way to explain how 39% of Democrats do not know that federal spending has gone up over the last ten years. Many undoubtedly choose not to believe it because in their minds the federal government never will do and spend enough. There will always be a need for more spending on education, health care, the elderly, children, the poor, infrastructure, economic development, environmental protection, climate change etc, etc.
The real troubling fact is that these people have a vote just like you and I do. As a result, it is going to take those with the belief that we need to take a different path to make sure they vote this November.
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