LONDON (TrustLaw) – A national survey has found that nearly half of likely U.S. voters are convinced that their lawmakers are corrupt, the highest reading ever.
A telephone survey of 1,000 people by Rasmussen Reports asked Americans the question “Are most members of Congress corrupt?” and 46 percent of respondents said yes, 29 percent said no and 25 percent were not sure.
The percentage of respondents who said yes is the highest since June 2008, and increased seven percent in the last month, the pollster said.
“Of course they're crooks,” NY Daily News quoted New York resident, Portia Grimes as saying when she was told of the results. “They start poor, but when they get into office they become millionaires. They mix and mingle and they're corrupted," Grimes added.
The survey also asked the question “Are most members of Congress sincerely interested in helping people or are they just interested in their own careers?” This time, the results were even more damning with 85 percent of respondents saying yes and only seven percent saying no. The percentage of respondents saying yes was another record, one that had stretched back to November 2006.
According to Rasmussen, there’s a general view that people dislike Congress but favour their own representatives. However, that view doesn’t match another of the survey’s findings. Just 31 percent of respondents “believe that their own representative is the best person for the job.”
Congress’ drop in the public’s estimation is mirrored by Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index. The United States scored 7.1 on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean), a fall of 0.4 from the previous year.
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