Doing What Works: The Public Opinion Paradox

Ruy Teixeira: There's a sort of paradox to America's public opinion on government. On the one hand, they see a lot of things that need to be dealt with, a lot of problems that need to be solved, and they think government should be doing more to solve these problems.

Person 1: They're definitely not doing enough, I mean look at what's happening down in the Gulf.

Person 2: They should be more active about providing some relief when they have natural disasters like Katrina.

How do Americans view their government?

Teixeira: But, they look at the way government functions and they see government as being inefficient, unresponsive, unaccountable.

Person 1: Government just wastes it on every little thing.

Teixeira: There's always been a bit of this tension in american view toward government, but since the 1960s there's a been a pretty dramatic falloff in america's confidence in government.

Person 3: I just feel like politics and all that stuff is kind of distantI feel like there's this whole little, like, Washington circle, and then us.

Person 1: So Americans do not trust the government.

Confidence and favorability

Teixeira: We're now at the lowest level we've seen since this question has been asked. So this is a challenging environment.

Person 4: I would need proof from the politicians that what they say during their campaigns actually comes to fruition, because what you see are politics, just politics, and that's it, whereas you don't see any tangible evidence that they're going to accomplish what they say that they're going to accomplish.

How should government be improved?

Teixeira: So, if people saw the government as being reformed, and being efficient...

Person 5: I don't necessarily want more. I think our government should be a lot more efficient. I think there's a huge amount of waste.

Teixeira: In terms of this Doing What Works project that we've been working on here at CAP, there's lot of positive evidence from this survey that there are concrete things we can do in terms of making government programs function in a more, judged by real-world results kind of way. People like the idea that agencies should set specific targets, try to meet them, and tell the public about them.

Person 2: You need to think about getting one thing done everyday. If you can't do that, you can't get anything done.

Government will be judged by results

Teixeira: They like the idea that programs will be judged by results, and when they're ineffective they'll be eliminated or combined with other programs that are effective.

Person 4: I'm optimistic about the government. I have faith in the U.S. government, that they can turn things around. But I think that we're in a very deep hole right now, and that's a problem.