Control freak government turning voters off

Opinion Journal:

President Obama's approval rating has sunk below 50% for the first time, but for our money the bigger polling news is the way his agenda is turning the public against activist government.

Last week's NBC/Wall Street Journal survey asked whether voters thought that "government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people" or if "government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals." This is a familiar polling question to gauge the credibility of government, albeit a bit loaded toward liberal social rhetoric.

Some 47% nonetheless replied that they thought government is doing too much, while only 44% believed that it should do more. That's a striking change since February, when the views were reversed, with 51% saying the government should do more, and only 40% saying do less.

Even more startling, in the latest survey only 18% said they trusted government to do the right thing "most of the time," down from a high of 36% in July 2004 and 27% in August 2005. Some 32% said they trusted government to do the right thing "almost never," up from single digits in earlier surveys when it was a volunteered response.

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This data suggest that the Democrats' fantasy of seeing their fortunes recover by passing their health care bill will not be realized. Predictions that Obama will be back at the 60 percent approval level just do not appear realistic.

I think he will probably find voters even angrier that their wishes were ignored. The passion was already on the side of those who opposed these reforms and that passion is not going to dissipate because it passed.