Oblivious of this growing inferno of distrust toward government, what is Obama’s monotonous refrain? More government.

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For someone with such paltry private sector experience, Barack Obama sure seems to think he’s qualified to captain it. 

A remarkable new Pew Research report, however, highlights a dissonance that helps explain Obama’s miserable performance so far as the nation’s Community Organizer-in-Chief.  Namely, the man who spent most of his professional life in the government sector collides with an American public increasingly hostile toward that very government. 

The new poll also provides an instructive reminder why his latest crusade against the financial sector is a dubious idea. 

This week, Pew released a poll showing that Americans’ trust in government has plummeted “by almost every conceivable measure.”  Despite the curiously persistent myth of Obama’s magical persuasive power, Pew acknowledges that “there is less of an appetite for government solutions to the nation’s problems – including more government control over the economy – than there was when Barack Obama first took office.”  Only 22% of respondents now say that they “trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time,” which Pew notes is “among the lowest measures in half a century.” 

While Obama this month admonished frustrated Americans that they should actually thank him while filling out their April 15 tax returns, he might find his own impact particularly alarming: 

“A desire for smaller government is particularly evident since Barack Obama took office.  In four surveys over the past year, about half have consistently said they would rather have a smaller government with fewer services, while about 40% have consistently preferred a bigger government providing more services.  In October 2008, shortly before the presidential election, the public was evenly divided on this issue (42% smaller government, 43% bigger government).” 

Nice work, Mr. Obama. 

Not that Obama’s accomplices Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi have fared better.  “Over the last year,” Pew reports, “favorable opinions of Congress have declined by half – from 50% to 25%.”  And that’s not just anger toward Congress generically.  Rather, public disgust focuses on the current incumbents, not the system itself: 

“For the most part, the public sees the members of Congress themselves, rather than a broken political system, as the problem with the institution.  A majority (52%) says that the political system can work fine, it’s the members of Congress that are the problem…  Public opinion about elected officials in Washington is relentlessly negative.  Favorable ratings for the Democratic Party have fallen by 21 points – from 59% to 38% – over the past year and now stand at their lowest point in Pew Research surveys.” 

In the words of The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger, “this report isn’t bad news for Democrats – it’s Armageddon.” 

Oblivious of this growing inferno of distrust toward government, what is Obama’s monotonous refrain? 

More government. 

Fresh off the big-government ObamaCare “victory” that saw his approval rating decline rather than ascend, he commenced a new lecture tour to inform America how his financial crusade is a similarly brilliant idea. 

In a monument to his hypocrisy and audacity, Obama refused this week to return $1 million in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees.  Simultaneously, however, he tastelessly slurred Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as somehow being a pawn of “movers and shakers up there.”  Moreover, his politicized Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) abandoned its tradition of unanimity in voting 3-2 to bring civil charges against Goldman. 

This is the same SEC that admitted just last week that it failed for an entire decade to stop R. Allen Stanford’s $8 billion Ponzi scheme despite multiple urgent requests.  SEC enforcement staff reportedly told internal investigators that “senior SEC management did not favor the pursuit of Ponzi schemes and other frauds that were difficult to investigate and time-consuming to prosecute.” 

It’s also the same SEC that incompetently failed to stop Bernie Madoff’s infamous $65 billion Ponzi scheme despite no fewer than eight investigations over the years. 

Despite these realities, Obama continues to smugly instruct a skeptical electorate that what it needs is more SEC and government power. 

Obama unveiled his big-government “stimulus” scheme over a year ago with the promise that unemployment would remain below 8%, but we’re still at 10%.  Obama also promised that he would usher in an era of fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, but he has instead increased wasteful spending and the deficit to unprecedented levels. 

Given this legacy of bureaucratic failure, the public’s cratering sense of trust toward big government is well-justified.  Unfortunately for Americans, an oblivious Barack Obama has spent most of his professional life within that bureaucratic edifice and intends to give us even more of it. 

Until, that is, the November 2010 elections rudely intervene.