Americans Believe Corporations Have Too Much Power

The Gallup Poll has just released a new survey (done March 25th through March 27th with a total of 1,027 adults, and a margin of error of 4 points). This poll was on whether institutions in this country have too much power or not. Most people agreed that certain institutions (like state and local governments, religion, and the military) don't have more power than they should have. For all four of those about half the population believe their power is about right, and the other half is split between too much power and too little power -- in other words, the numbers are about where they should be.

Two other institutions split along party lines. About 69% of Republicans believe unions have too much power, while only 20% of Democrats believe that. And 75% of Republicans believe the federal government have too much power, while only 34% of Democrats believe that. In both cases Independents fell between the Republicans and Democrats. Again, that is no surprise.

The surprise, at least for me, was that the poll shows that there are three groups that a majority of all Americans believe have too much power (regardless of political belief) -- major corporations, banks/financial institutions, and lobbyists. It looks like America is finally waking up to the fact that our government is too skewed toward corporate and financial interests (and the lobbyists that represent those interests).

This is good news for America and bad news for Republican politicians in Washington and state governments (whose policies favor those corporations and financial interests with subsidies and tax cuts even though they are making record profits and don't need the favoritism they are being shown). Now that Americans have finally realized that too much of government has been turned over to the corporations (who were even allowed to write laws in the Bush administration) maybe something can be done about it.

And I don't just want to pick on the Republicans -- far too many Democrats, especially the "blue dogs", have sold out to corporate interests also. Voters need to expunge the politicians of both parties that favor corporate and banking interests over the interests of ordinary Americans -- and the sooner this is done the better it will be for this country and most of its citizens.

Here are the numbers on Americans who think corporation, banks, and lobbyists have too much power:

MAJOR CORPORATIONS
All Americans...............67%
Republicans...............56%
Independents...............69%
Democrats...............73%

BANKS/FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
All Americans...............67%
Republicans...............58%
Independents...............70%
Democrats...............70%

LOBBYISTS
All Americans...............71%
Republicans...............70%
Independents...............75%
Democrats...............68%

Now if Americans would just vote those beliefs we would all be better off.