Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Americans Say Government is Our Greatest Problem
Americans Say Government is Our Greatest Problem
Aug 26, 2025 10:55 PM

What is the worst problem facing America? According to a recent Gallup poll, most Americans agree with former President Reagan, who said government is not a the solution, government is the problem.

An average of 16 percent of Americans in 2015 mentioned some aspect of government—including President Obama, Congress, or political conflict—as the country’s chief problem. The economy came in second with 13 percent mentioning it, while unemployment and immigration tied for third at 8 percent.

While government takes the top slot, that’s still an answer given by fewer than one in five citizens. We can’t even seem e to a consensus about our biggest problems. Indeed, 2015 is only the second time since 2001 (2014 was the other year) that no single issue averaged 20 percent or more for the year. Rather than being focused on a single issue, there is a broad range of concerns troubling us; more than a dozen issuesreceived2-6 percent of the vote for worst problem.

Perhaps not surprising since this is an election year, thiswas the first year since 2007 in which immigration was one of the top four most frequently cited problems. Gallup notes that this is likely because mentions of healthcare dropped from 10 percent in 2014 (when Obamacare was frequently in the news) to 6 percent in 2015.

Rounding out the top 10 were five problems, each averaging 5 percent: ethical/moral decline, race relations/racism, terrorism, the federal budget deficit or debt, and education.

Six other issues received 3 percent each: poverty/hunger/homelessness, national security, gap between rich and poor, crime/violence, foreign aid, and ISIS/situation in Iraq.

What would make the top three issue in you list of America’s greatest problems.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The price is wrong?
Seth Godin contends today that “most people don’t really care about price.” He uses a couple of arguments that involve aspects of convenience, and so he concludes, “price is a signal, a story, a situational decision that is never absolute. It’s just part of what goes into making a decision, no matter what we’re buying.” He’s right, in the sense that everyone will not choose the service or item with the lower price at all times and in all places....
The right to die, the duty to live
I take on the current upswing in public support for euthanasia laws, especially among certain sectors of Christianity in a mentary today, “Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death.” I note especially the stance taken by a Baylor university professor of ethics and the student newspaper in favor of legalizing euthanasia. In a recent On the Square item, Joseph Bottum notes a similar trend, as he writes, “Euthanasia has been making eback in recent months, bubbling up again and again...
Maximizing wages, minimizing employment
This is probably not the best move for a state that has been among the worst in the nation in terms of unemployment: “Lawmakers in the Michigan House of Representatives are preparing to vote on a proposed hike in the minimum wage to nearly $7 an hour.” The state Senate passed the measure late last week, so the House’s agreement would put the matter into the hands of Gov. Granholm. According to the Office of Labor Market Information, Michigan’s unemployment...
There’s no such thing as “free” education
Citing a recent OECD report, the EUObserver says that European schools are falling behind their counterparts in the US and Asia. The main reason: a governmental obsession with equality that prevents investment and innovation in education, especially at the university level. “The US outspends Europe on tertiary level education by more than 50% per student, and much of that difference is due to larger US contributions from tuition-paying students and the private sector,” noted the OECD paper. Here’s how the...
The crunchiness of factory farming
The CrunchyCon blog at NRO is currently discussing the issue of factory farming, which is apparently covered and described in some detail in Dreher’s book (my copy currently is on order, having not been privy to the “crunchy con”versation previously). A reader accuses Dreher of being in favor of big-government, because “he thinks we ought to ‘ban or at least seriously reform’ factory farming.” Caleb Stegall responds that he, at least, is not a big-government crunchy con, and that this...
Politics and the pulpit
According to The Church Report, a new resource has been released which offers churches guidelines for keeping their activities and functions within the letter of the law. As non-profit organizations, churches are held to the same standard as registered charities and cannot engage in certain forms of public speech. A report by The Rutherford Institute, “The Rights of Churches and Political Involvement” (PDF), examines in detail what the restrictions are for churches. There are two main areas: “first, no substantial...
Government can’t do it alone
The news from across the pond today is that the UK government is announcing that it will miss its target set in 1999 to reduce the number of children in poverty by 1 million. According to the BBC, “Department for Work and Pension figures show the number of children in poverty has fallen by 700,000 since 1999, missing the target by 300,000.” This has resulted in the typical responses when government programs fail: calls to “redouble” efforts and to increase...
Ides
A snippet from the ing Religion & Liberty: It is true that democracy is the best of the political systems, in that it guarantees, through universal suffrage, a peaceful changeover of power. But democracy and its instrument, majority rule, is not a method to investigate the truth. –Rafael Termes The blessings and responsibilities of a peaceful political system: something for a free people to remember on this noteworthy day in March. ...
‘Patrolling the boundaries…of democratic space.’
Maximilian Pakaluk, associate editor at NRO, examines a recent panel discussion given by the New York Historical Society, which included Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Akhil Reed Amar, Southmayd Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, and Benno C. Schmidt Jr., chairman of the Edison Schools and former dean of Columbia Law School. The discussion was entitled “We the People: Active Liberty and the American Constitution.” Pakaluk observes, “The three speakers, but especially Schmidt and Breyer, agreed that...
Vatican official flogs “secularized charity”
Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes is the president of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” which coordinates the Catholic Church’s charitable institutions. ZENIT reports on a speech the prelate delivered at a Catholic university in Italy. Archbishop Cordes has previously emphasized the importance of Christian organizations maintaining or recovering their Christian identity, but in this address he drew on Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est to make his strongest statement yet: “The large Church charity organizations have separated themselves from the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved