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Poll: 70% of Americans see big government as ‘biggest threat’

Wednesday, 23 December 2015 1:49 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 23 December 2015 5:08 PM ]

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe big government is the biggest threat to the United States in the future.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe that big government poses the biggest threat to their country, according to a new poll.

When asked by Gallup to choose among big government, big labor and big business, 69 percent of Americans named big government as the biggest threat to the United States in the future.

The figure is one of the highest percentages in Gallup's 50-year trend.

The survey, conducted on December 2-6 and released on Tuesday, also found that 25 percent saw big business as the largest problem for the country and 6 percent were most concerned about big labor.

Americans have traditionally viewed big government as posing a bigger threat than big labor and big business. However, the share of Americans who thought so was significantly lower prior to 1990.

Gallup said that concerns about the threat of big government might have been resulted from the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, and revelations about government surveillance of communications.

Another Gallup poll found in September that 75 percent of Americans cited government corruption as a reason for distrust and disaffection with government, particularly in the light of IRS, Secret Service and Veterans Administration scandals.

Another Gallup poll found in September that 75 percent of Americans believed corruption was widespread in the US government.

The percentage of Americans who saw government corruption as pervasive has never been less than a majority in the past decade.

Further, a Gallup survey released in August showed that only 26 percent of Americans were satisfied with the direction of their country,

Generally, less than 30 percent of Americans have expressed satisfaction with the country's direction since 2007, an extraordinarily long spell of low satisfaction when compared with Gallup's full trend since 1979.

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