Charlie Neibergall / AP Photo
The recent debt and economy crises have taken a toll on the U.S. government—and on American citizens’ faith in the feds. According to a new Washington Post Poll, roughly 70 percent of Americans are not confident about the government’s ability to fix the economy, and a majority found Standard & Poor’s credit downgrade to be a “fair” assessment of the United States’ financial situation. Since October 2010, public confidence in our country’s economy has dipped 21 percent, and record numbers of people said they would vote for new congressional representation in the 2012 elections. Seven out of 10 Americans think the government is “mostly focused on the wrong things,” though they are equally divided as to whether Republicans or Democrats are to blame.