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February 15, 2012

Our View: Don't stop there, Congress

The Free Press

— As the U.S. House passed a bill to ban federal officials from insider trading last week, an innocuous sentence inside the accompanying Associated Press story might have caused a few people to chuckle.

“Congress hopes to use the bill to lift its sagging public approval ratings,” the line read.

If only it were possible that one bill’s passage could change years of public perception. If the nation’s legislators are truly serious about improving their approval ratings long-term, they’ll need to show us more than one bill’s worth in bipartisanship.

Truth be told, even the insider trading bill (or STOCK Act, as we’d come to know it under Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz’ sponsorship), which passed 96-3 in the Senate and 417-2 in the House, was influenced by last-minute self-serving political wrangling over specific provisions.

We hope, however, that Congress really is serious about improving its image among voters. Go ahead and use the insider trading bill as a starting point, then, but realize that it’s going to take a lot of heavy lifting over time.

Let’s take a look at our national political scene, using some polling data gleaned over the past several days:

A Rasmussen Reports survey showed that 43 percent of voters nationwide (38 percent disagree; 19 percent aren’t sure) say that people randomly selected from a telephone book would do a better job than our current crop of leaders. A separate survey from the same polling organization revealed that only 5 percent of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job (compared to 70 percent rating their performance as poor).

A Pew Research Center poll declares that even now, well into the 2012 primary season, 52 percent of Republicans rate the presidential field of their party as fair to poor (higher than the 44 percent registered in January.) A separate Pew poll also finds Americans continuing to struggle with President Obama’s leadership. Obama’s job approval rating was 44 percent as judged by Pew. Other recent U.S. presidents at this stage of their re-election year efforts had the following numbers: George W. Bush 56 percent, Bill Clinton 50 percent, and George H.W. Bush 46 percent.

Favorability ratings, of course, fluctuate. New reports will emerge this week, but our guess is the overall picture will remain the same.

A Rasmussen report last week on the favorability ratings of the top four congressional leaders announced that their numbers have actually improved — slightly “from last month’s all-time lows.”

Faint praise, that.

Keep trying, lawmakers. Rebuild the dike. But we all know this is an election year, and we’re going to stay skeptics until the infighting, backbiting and intransigence that have come to characterize Congress for far too long leans toward a more long-term adjustment.

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