Freedom Line Blog

In our latest Liberty Update, we highlight the benefits of the Trump Administration’s deregulation effort, both pre-pandemic and going forward, and how a budding effort among Congressional leftists to impose a moratorium on business mergers would severely undermine that effort.  Rasmussen Reports brings excellent news in that regard, as large majorities of Americans agree with Trump rather than hyper-regulatory leftists:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey shows that 58% of likely U.S. voters approve of Trump’s decision to temporarily limit government regulation of small businesses to help them bounce back.  Just 26% are opposed, while 17% are undecided.”

Sadly but perhaps predictably, those on the left stubbornly disagree:

The president’s action has triggered criticism from some.  While 70% of Republicans and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party agree with the decision to temporarily limit government regulation of small businesses, just 44% of Democrats share that view.”

Nevertheless, this is welcome news, as Americans maintain faith in what gave us the strongest economy in human history when the coronavirus pandemic suddenly hit – deregulation and letting America’s free market forces work.

Gallup reports an encouraging upswing in American optimism amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with a plurality now stating that the situation is improving:

American Optimism Rising

Interestingly, however, Democrats stand as an exception.  Whereas they similarly expressed increased optimism, in recent days that trend has reversed.  We’ll leave it to others to speculate on what explains that:

With One Exception

More phenomenal news from Gallup.  Consumer spending accounts for approximately two-thirds of the U.S. economy, and economic confidence has now reached its highest point since 2000, when the mainstream media couldn’t stop talking about how great things were.  Thank you, deregulation and tax cuts.

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Thank You, Tax Cuts and Deregulation

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Bad news, socialized medicine advocates.  The latest Gallup survey on the issue shows that Americans still overwhelmingly rate their healthcare as positive.

Notably, ratings have improved since Donald Trump replaced Barack Obama, and began chipping away at ObamaCare.

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Bad News, Socialists

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Socialized medicine advocates thus have their work cut out for them in selling their program to the American electorate.

Somehow, it has escaped mainstream media attention that public satisfaction with America’s direction has jolted upward by almost 40%, from 26% to 36%, since January 2017:

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Right Track/Wrong Track Improves Dramatically Since January 2017

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Not exactly the post-presidency verdict that Barack Obama or leftists would have preferred, from USA Today:

Ouch

Beyond the James Comey cacophony that increasingly appears composed of left-wing hype rather than legal substance, it’s worth highlighting an encouraging new Rasmussen Reports survey released this week.

Despite years of false “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” demonization of the nation’s police forces, the American public continues to back the cops:

It’s been a rough few years to be a police officer, with high-profile police shootings and riots dominating the news.  But despite the negative press, Americans still value the police.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that most American adults (70%) rate the performance of the police in the area where they live as good or excellent.  That’s virtually unchanged from 2016, but up from 67% in late 2014.  Just five percent (5%) think their police are doing a poor job.”

Police in America have a difficult job and deal with a disproportionate share of society’s underbelly while putting their lives on the line on our behalf every day, but at least they can know that the public overwhelmingly has their back.

As we emerge from Memorial Day, Gallup has released a new poll that offers both encouraging and unsettling takeaways.

On the positive side, Americans overall remain extremely favorable toward all five military branches.  The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard receive “Very Favorable” ratings of 53%, 55%, 57%, 59% and 54%, respectively.  For anyone who remembers the post-Vietnam and Carter era malaise, that has to come as welcome news.

Unfortunately, it appears that even military esteem is subject to our deepening partisan divides:

Differences emerge, however, by political party, race and age.  Republicans, non-Hispanic whites and those aged 55 and older who are aware of each branch are much more likely to have strongly favorable views of each of the five branches than are Democrats, nonwhites or those younger than 35.  The biggest gaps in favorable opinion are between Republicans and Democrats (including those who lean to either party).  The largest is a 35-point difference in views toward the Navy, with 74% of Republicans versus 39% of Democrats having strongly favorable views…

Whatever one’s political affiliation, it would be a tragedy for the military to become another outlet for expression of partisanship.  We live in far too dangerous a world, and hopefully this gap diminishes soon.

As we move forward on President Trump’s tax reform proposal, which we highlighted in our latest Liberty Update, there’s encouraging news to report.  According to Rasmussen Reports, Americans are so far supportive.

By a 46% to 32% margin, Americans support Trump’s proposal to repeal the unfair “death tax,” and by a 48% to 30% margin agree that tax cuts help the economy.  Voters are also receptive to the plan “to eliminate most income tax deductions in exchange for a higher standard deduction,” which will simplify the code and benefit Americans in the lower filing brackets.

So there’s popular momentum, and now it’s up to Congress to finally get this done.

Whatever your opinion of Donald Trump, one must admit that this stunning new survey result scores a point toward the idea of “Making America Great Again”:

Forty-five percent (45%) of likely U.S. voters think the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey for the week ending February 9.  That’s down a point from the previous week and down two points from the week before that, which was the highest level of optimism in over 12 years of regular surveying.  By comparison, the weekly finding was in the mid- to upper 20s for much of 2016.”

The political tyranny du jour among climate change alarmists is leveraging the power of the state to persecute anyone who contradicts their orthodoxy using actual facts and data.  As we’ve highlighted, that abusive effort has blown up in their faces, including countersuits from targeted organizations.

There’s more good news to report:  The persecutors’ effort has hit a thud in terms of public opinion as well.  In an election season marked by narrow partisan divisions, a new Rasmussen survey demonstrates a rare degree of public consensus against politicians hoping to silence climate realists:

Attorneys general in 15 states are attempting to prosecute corporations and individuals that they believe are misleading the public about global warming.  Their action, which critics claim is a violation of free speech, has prompted a Congressional investigation.  Most voters continue to believe that the scientific debate about global warming is not over, and oppose government action against those who question it.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 69% of likely U.S. voters oppose the government investigating and prosecuting scientists and others, including major corporations, who question global warming.  Just 15% favor such investigations.”

It’s rare to find a 69% to 15% public agreement on anything these days, but it’s worth celebrating that despite the constant onslaught of demonizing rhetoric from climate change alarmists, the overwhelming majority of Americans continue to reject their agenda.

As ObamaCare enters the real world and departs Barack Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” fantasy world, it is already proving a slow-motion disaster for Americans.  This week, The Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article entitled “Rising Rates Pose Challenge for Health Law,” and the news is grim:

Insurers have raised premiums steeply for the most popular plans at the same time they have boosted out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles, copays and coinsurance in many of their offerings.  The companies attribute the moves in part to the high cost of some customers they are gaining under the law, which doesn’t allow them to bar clients with existing health conditions.  The result is that many people can’t avoid paying more for insurance in 2016 simply by shopping around – and those who try risk landing in a plan with fewer doctors and skimpier coverage.”

The report proceeds to describe the magnitude with greater specificity, and it is astonishing:

Premiums for individual plans offered by the dominant local insurers are rising almost everywhere for 2016, typically by double-digit percentage increases, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of plan data in 34 states where the Healthcare.gov site sells insurance.  More than half of the midrange ‘silver’ plans are boosting the out-of-pocket costs enrollees must pay, while more than 80% of the less-expensive ‘bronze’ plans are doing so.”

Meanwhile, a new Gallup survey released this week shows that the percentage of Americans rating their healthcare quality as excellent or good has plummeted from 62% in 2010 when ObamaCare was enacted to 53% now.  The survey also reveals that the percentage who are satisfied with healthcare costs has actually declined from 26% in 2009 to 21% today.

As experience with ObamaCare increases with implementation, the situation promises to get worse by the day.  Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi passed, now we’re staring at the reality of what was in it.

Year after year, the public rates the U.S. military the most trusted and popular institution in American life.  Now, at a moment in which the military may play an increasingly vital role in protecting us against growing terrorist threats and and increasingly restive antagonists like Russia and China, a new poll reveals that Hillary Clinton’s standing among military personnel can only be described as atrocious:

Hillary Clinton is still in line to win the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the next commander in chief, but few Americans in the military have a good impression of her.  A new Rally Point/Rasmussen Reports national survey of active and retired military personnel finds that only 15% have a favorable impression of Clinton, with just three percent (3%) who view the former Secretary of State very favorably. Clinton is seen unfavorably by 81%, including 69% who share a very unfavorable impression of her.”

For someone applying for the job of Commander in Chief, that is an ominous sign, and one that may receive increasing attention as the 2016 election approaches.

So it turns out that Barack Obama is succeeding in his effort to become a transformative president in the manner of Ronald Reagan after all.  Unfortunately for him, that’s because his presidency has reinforced rather than reversed Reagan’s axiom that “government isn’t the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”  Think of him as a Midas in reverse.

This morning, Gallup released a new survey on the question that it has asked Americans every year since 2002:  “Do you think the federal government has too much power, has about the right amount of power or has too little power?”  Hardened by almost seven years under Obama, the number who say that it has too much power maintains its record high:

The 60% recorded in this survey ties the previous high from 2013 for the question, which Gallup has asked annually since 2002.  The solid majorities in 2013, 2014 and this year saying the federal government is too powerful differ significantly from the 51% Gallup measured in 2012.  That poll was conducted in the days after the Democratic National Convention that helped propel Barack Obama to a re-election win that year.  During President Obama’s first year in office in 2009, the percentage of Americans concerned with the power of the federal government was 51%.  By his second year in office, 2010, that percentage climbed to 59%, after the federal government passed the Affordable Care Act.”

Perhaps the worst news of all for Obama, his apologists and dead-end leftists is that the groups accounting for the record high are Democrats, moderates and liberals.  Conservatives, libertarians and Republicans have regularly responded that the federal government possesses too much power.  “But now,” Gallup reports, “a majority of moderates (57%), as well as independents (64%), share that view.”

To the extent that Bill Clinton’s presidency was successful, it was because of his famous admission after electoral defeats that “The era of big government is over.”  Obama attempted a more hardened course, but that has only made his own presidency less successful and proved the wisdom of Clinton’s reluctant observation.

President Barack Obama is on pace to have the most polarized approval ratings in history, according to a new Gallup poll.

Polarized approval ratings mean the gap between those in a president’s party that approve of him compared to those in the opposition party that don’t. “So far in his presidency, there has been an average party gap of 70 points in Obama’s approval ratings, which, if it continues, would be easily the highest for a president to date,” says the Gallup summary.

For context, former President George W. Bush “is second with a 61-point gap throughout his presidency, followed by Clinton (56) and Reagan (52). The other presidents [going back to Eisenhower] had party gaps of no more than 41 points.”

As Tim explained in his column last week, it’s no surprise that people concerned about the country’s fiscal future disapprove of Obama’s job performance. Economic growth is in a nine-year rut, the percentage of the U.S. population with jobs is as low as when Jimmy Carter was in office, and the median income has actually declined since Obama’s economic “recovery” was announced.

The real question after reading through the Gallup results isn’t, What’s the matter with Republicans? It’s, How in the world can Democrats see the current president as worthy of such lofty praise?

Here’s some good news from Pew Research to interrupt the current sense that the world in which we live is collapsing into a smoldering heap:

For the first time in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys, there is more support for gun rights than gun control.  Currently, 52% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while 46% say it is more important to control gun ownership.  Support for gun rights has edged up from earlier this year, and marks a substantial shift in attitudes since shortly after the Newtown school shootings, which occurred two years ago this Sunday.”

Additionally, a healthy majority believes that firearms protect law-abiding citizens more than they create a safety risk:

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Dec. 3-7 among 1,507 adults, also finds a shift in attitudes about whether gun ownership in this country does more to protect people or put people’s safety at risk.  Nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) say gun ownership does more to protect people from becoming victims of crime, while 38% say it does more to endanger personal safety.  In the days after Newtown, 48% said guns do more to protect people and 37% said they placed people at risk.”

Just more confirmation that the American public demonstrates greater wisdom than our self-appointed shamans in the mainstream media and political classes.

Fifty-six percent of Americans disapprove of ObamaCare, the highest number disapproving of the controversial health care law since Gallup began asking the question.

Approval of ObamaCare peaked just before the 2012 presidential election, but has cratered since then.

The culprit is reality.

The beginning of ObamaCare’s nosedive in popularity “occurred in early November 2013”, according to Gallup’s analysis, “shortly after millions of Americans received notices that their current policies were being canceled, which was at odds with President Barack Obama’s pledge that those who liked their plans could keep them. The president later said, by way of clarification, that Americans could keep their plans if those plans didn’t change after [ObamaCare] was passed.”

In other words, the law has continued to grow less popular with each new revelation that it was sold on a pack of lies.

Though completely repealing the entire law seems unlikely because the new Republican Senate majority is less than the number needed to overcome a certain Obama veto, the increasing levels of voter disapproval could convince some Senate Democrats to join Republicans in dismantling large parts.

Unless, that is, they want to risk involuntary retirement when their next election arrives.

“Just 35 percent of voters now support the Affordable Care Act, down 3 percentage points from May, according to a monthly poll by the Kaiser Health Foundation,” reports The Hill.

Moreover, the poll found that 47 percent of respondents feel negatively about the law, otherwise known as ObamaCare.

The RealClearPolitics average of six national polls is even worse: 53.8 percent say they oppose the law, with only 40.3 percent in favor.

Little wonder that the controversial health law is so unpopular. States are continuing to resist Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare’s terms for fear of a Trojan horse spending spree, and consumers are getting shut out of some of the country’s best hospitals.

All this and it is still almost two months until the midterm elections.

President Barack Obama may not be on the ballot this year, but his eponymous health law surely is.

Increasingly, Californians across nearly all age, political and demographic groups oppose organized labor, according to a new poll.

Overall, 45 percent of respondents said labor unions do “more harm than good,” while 40 percent said they do “more good than harm.”

Interestingly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s private or public employee unions. People dislike both equally.

Even Democrats are souring on one of their party’s most powerful constituencies. The independent Field Poll found that “30 percent of registered Democrats now say unions do more harm than good, up from 21 percent in the 2011 survey.”

Potential reasons include the ongoing pension and retirement benefits funding crises causing many municipalities to cut other services like public safety. An ongoing strike by public transit workers is stoking discontent in the Bay Area, heretofore a pro-union fortress.

It’s probably too early to tell how the slide in support for unions will impact California’s politics. One thing is certain, though. By overplaying their hand, unions have earned the ire of a populace predisposed to support them. If disapproval of unions turns into a clear majority, the state that touched off a wave of property tax reform in the 1970’s may become the impetus for weakening unions in the next decade.

Stay tuned.

Gallup released a new poll this week showing that a sizeable portion of an important cohort for Obamacare’s success is planning to pay fine rather than foot the bill for most costly insurance.

The so-called young invincibles – defined by Gallup as Americans under 30 years old – is the group whose purchase of health insurance on Obamacare exchanges is most coveted because they are projected to pay for more services than they use. The money made off their premiums will cover the cost of care for older and sicker people in the risk pool.

But the financial coercion desired by Obamacare’s operators could likely hit a snag this year because the penalty for not buying insurance is only $95, or less than any monthly premium available on an exchange.

Unfortunately for Obamacare’s supporters, Gallup says that 26 percent of young invincibles are planning to pay the fine instead of buy insurance. If enough do so, Obamacare’s cost structure gets up-ended, putting the feds on the hook to cover the overruns. Private insurers will then spike premiums in future years to compensate.

The big question is, “What number is ‘enough’?” No one knows the answer.

That’s because the key number for making the Obamacare exchanges financially workable is a ratio. For Healthcare.gov – the federal exchange – the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 38 percent of the risk pool needs to be young invincibles in order for the system to operate.

That means that the critical number for Healthcare.gov isn’t whether it actually enrolls the 7 million people it originally projected; it’s whether 38 percent of whatever population enrolls is made up of young invincibles, says Ezra Klein.

Early returns aren’t boding well, reports Breitbart News. The Obama administration so far has refused to release a breakdown of federal enrollees by age bracket, but the State of Kentucky has. The Bluegrass State runs its own exchange and only 19 percent of its enrollees are between the ages of 18-34 – a span that includes more years than Gallup’s. If that trend holds throughout the enrollment period that runs through March, Kentucky – and any other exchange with less than 38 percent of young invincibles – could face the dreaded ‘death spiral’ where premium costs soar to cover a sicker population that anticipated.

For now, we’ll have to wait and see whether the Obamacare-affiliated exchanges hit the magic number by the enrollment deadline. My guess is that the lack of transparency is directly related to the failure to meet the goal.