Five possible reasons why Congress’ approval rating is below 10%

Rasmussen Reports released a new survey today that showed Congress has reached an all time low, receiving a dismal 9% approval rating. This is the first survey in Rasmussen’s history where Congressional rating has dropped below 10%.

Even when broken down by party affiliation, only 13% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans gave Congress positive marks.

While there are a lot of things that could be attributed to this continuing downward spiral, here is a list of 5 Congressional activities (covered by FreedomTalks) from the last six months that might have played a role.

1.) Failed Earmark Reform: Despite efforts by Senator Jim DeMint, Congress was unwilling to pass a bill that would place a one year moratorium on earmark spending.

2.) Attempts to Pass Cap and Trade: Even though gas prices were looming at $4 per gallon, the Senate still tried to push a bill that had the potential to raise the price of gas by $.50 per gallon. Luckily, this was blocked and removed from the floor.

3.) Federal Reserve/JP Morgan Chase Bear Stearns Bailout: Bear Stearns was clearly bankrupt, but the Federal Reserve’s loan allowed J.P. Morgan Chase to eventually offer $10 a share for the firm.  That represents about a $1 billion windfall to Bear Stearns shareholders, who should have been wiped out completely for owning an insolvent investment bank.

4.) Dodd/Countrywide Housing Bailout with Hidden Grassley Provision: Despite having received two VIP loans from Countrywide Financial, Senator Chris Dodd is still pushing a bill that would essentially bail them out. On top of that, buried deep inside this bill was a provision from Senator Charles Grassley that requires companies like PayPal, Amazon, etc., to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.

5.) Bloated Farm Bill: Billions in subsidies that hurt taxpayers and play a role in the increasing price of food is only one of the many problems with the 2008 Farm Bill.

I’m sure there are many more that could be listed, so if you have something you would like to ad, please don’t hesitate to mention it in the comments section below.