“President Barack Obama approaches his second inauguration amid persistent public resignation about the tepid economic recovery and a widespread belief that Washington’s budget fights have made things worse.
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that just 34 percent look at 2013 as a moment of economic expansion and opportunity; fully 60 percent call it a moment “to hold back and save because harder times are ahead.”
Just 36 percent express significant confidence that Obama, after four years in the Oval Office, has the ability to produce a strong and growing national economy.
More ominously, as the White House and Congress move from the recent fiscal-cliff showdown to new battles over the federal debt limit and scheduled across-the-board budget cuts, a 51 percent majority says negotiations between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue make them less confident about prospects for economic improvement.
That’s triple the proportion who say those negotiations make them more confident.
Such attitudes, said Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster who conducts the NBC/WSJ survey with his Republican counterpart Bill McInturff, have fundamentally altered the public mood that prevailed during Obama’s first inaugural four years ago.
Instead of “hope” in 2009, Hart explained, Americans are preoccupied with the attempt to “cope” with diminished economic circumstances. (Read More:Conservatives Tell GOP: Don’t Mess With Debt Ceiling)
Obama has received only a faint version of the bump-up in public evaluations that re-elected president’s typically received after election-year acrimony fades. His overall approval rating stands at 52 percent, slightly up from 48 percent one year ago….”
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