Election Day Poll: Voters Repudiate Bailouts, Bailout Secrecy and Warn Republicans

The balance of power shifted in dramatic fashion on Capitol Hill on November 2, as Republicans rode the Tea Party wave, seizing control of the House of Representatives and earning significant gains in the U.S. Senate.

Of course the spin from Obama/Pelosi/Reid on their historic thrashing was that voters were simply frustrated by the pace of the economic recovery. And there’s no doubt the state of the economy was top in the minds of voters as they took to the polls on Tuesday.

But according to an Election Day poll Judicial Watch conducted in partnership with the polling company™, inc./WomanTrend, the liberal spin on the election results doesn’t even begin to tell the full story.

Here’s the takeaway from the poll: The American people think the government is too big, too secret and too corrupt. And they do not want any more government bailouts, ever. Make no mistake. This was a complete repudiation of the Obama Big Government agenda and the corrupt manner in which this agenda has been implemented.

Here are some of the other highlights from the poll which we pulled from an excellent summary prepared by our polling partners:

1. Nearly two in three actual voters surveyed (63%) said the new Congress should “never” authorize using taxpayer funds to bailout or to buyout privately-owned businesses. Only 10% of voters support bailing out companies “too big to fail.”
2. 68% of actual voters surveyed said corruption played a major role in the financial crisis, with 47% saying corruption played a “very major role.”
3. 67% of actual voters said they believe the records regarding how the Treasury Department has spent bailout funds should “definitely be made available” to the public, while only 13% of voters said the records should “definitely be kept secret” — a ratio of 5:1.
4. 82% of actual voters said they believed the level of government corruption in Washington has either increased (43%) or stayed the same (39%) over the last two years. 68% of actual voters said they believe the level of government corruption in Washington will either increase (24%) or stay the same (44%) over the next two years.
5. A total of 50 points separated those voters who say the average American has too little information about how their tax dollars are spent, and those who say such access to this information is “about right” (71%-21%).
6. By a 2-to-1 ratio, respondents believed that major legislation from the last two years (healthcare, economic stimulus and bailouts) made it more difficult to make the government account for the use of taxpayer dollars — (62%-28%).
7. Nearly 80% of actual voters who participated in the 2010 elections sensed that government grew larger during the first two years of the Obama administration, a development that a 51%-majority of viewed negatively.

See any ambiguity here? I don’t. The American people, by astonishingly large majorities, rejected the corruption, the secrecy and the massive expansion of government that has taken place under Obama/Pelosi/Reid. The American people want it to stop now.

But, before Republicans get too comfortable with their new status on Capitol Hill, they should pay attention to our voter poll numbers that show little hope that corruption will be curtailed in the next two years.

Clearly Republicans have major work to do — even their own supporters don’t believe Washington will get any less corrupt on their watch. This poll is a warning to Republicans (and Democrats) in the new Congress that they had better shrink the size of government, make it more transparent, end bailouts and rein in corruption.

But will they? Will the new Congress embrace the Judicial Watch/Tea Party mainstream values of smaller, cleaner, more accountable government? This can only happen if new Members of Congress do not repeat the mistakes of the recent past.

After all, it was just four years ago that Democrats assumed control of Congress with Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi famously promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington.

Of course, that did not happen. Instead the nation watched as numerous members of Congress became entangled in political corruption scandals while the congressional ethics process ground to a halt. (See Reps. Charlie Rangel [D-NY], William Jefferson [D-LA], Senators Chris Dodd [D-CT], Larry Craig [R-ID], and too many others to list.) Even Nancy Pelosi herself was nabbed by Judicial Watch in a major scandal involving her abuse of military air craft.

And just two years ago, President Barack Obama promised “hope,” “change,” and a new era of ethics and transparency in Washington. Instead, the nation watched as Obama presided over the greatest expansion of government power in our nation’s history, set new records for government secrecy, installed unconstitutional and unaccountable “czars,” and attacked the state of Arizona for trying to protect its citizens from the scourge of rampant illegal immigration, among many other scandals.

Then there was the November 2 earthquake. Voters across the country repudiated the corruption and secrecy that have characterized the Obama administration and the Pelosi-led Congress. Now a new Congress will come to town.

No matter which party has been in power, this much we know: corruption is a pervasive, corrosive problem on Capitol Hill and it only gets worse when the government grows. Major changes need to be made if we’re going to root it out — not the “tweaking” the President talked about in his post-election remarks.

The American people sent a message to Washington in historic fashion on November 2. Let’s make sure this message is received.