Most in U.S. blame gov't, not Wall St., for economy woes

Posted at 1:41 PM on October 19, 2011 by Paul Tosto
Filed under: Economy, Politics

File this one under Good News for Republican Presidential Candidates.

The latest Gallup Poll results show, "Americans are more than twice as likely to blame the federal government in Washington for the economic problems facing the United States as they are the financial institutions on Wall Street."

That has to be music to the ears of Tea Party backers and Republicans candidates who've made the federal government the target of their ire for months. The public seems to agree that politicians and bureaucrats are doing more damage than executives.

That doesn't mean business is blameless. When Gallup finessed the question a bit more it found, "More than three-quarters of Americans, in both cases, say these entities deserve a great deal or a fair amount of blame for the economic problems facing the U.S."

The political implications for Democrats and President Obama seem pretty clear. Gallup notes the president's efforts to align with the Occupy Wall Street:movement could backfire. The poll results:

...would seem to be particularly relevant to Democratic candidates for office, including Barack Obama, whose possible efforts to adopt the "blame Wall Street" positioning as a major part of their campaigns could risk failing to acknowledge the even larger enmity the public holds for the federal government itself.