By Washington - StateOfTheNation2012

Our Belief in "Widespread Corruption" In the U.S. Jumps 20%

Problems Are All Related ...

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

According to a new [Gallup] poll, Americans have become significantly "less satisfied with the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives."

Seventy-nine percent of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, down from 91 percent in 2006, according to the Gallup survey, released Tuesday.

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That 12-point drop pushes the United States from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, outside the top quartile of the 120 countries sampled, trailing Paraguay, Rwanda, and the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh [part of Azerbaijan].

Only 10 nations experienced as sharp a drop as the US in terms of the satisfaction of citizens with their level of freedom: Egypt, Greece, Italy, Venezuela, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Romania, Yemen, Pakistan, and Spain.

(We highlighted countries not especially known for their freedom.)

At the same time, the percentage of Americans who believe their is "widespread corruption" in the U.S. has skyrocketed. As the Monitor notes:

According to another poll also released by Gallup on Tuesday, the portion of Americans who believe there to be "widespread corruption" in the US has jumped from 59 percentin 2006 to 79 percent in 2013.

And Americans trust in all 3 branches of government are plunging to historic lows. The Washington Times reports:

Americans' confidence in all three branches of U.S. government is falling, hitting record lows for the Supreme Court, at 30 percent, and Congress, at 7 percent, while the presidency is at a six-year low of 29 percent.

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Since June 2013, confidence has fallen 7 points for the presidency, 4 points for theSupreme Court and 3 points for Congress.

A new poll finds that Obama is now more unpopular than Bush ... and the least popular president since WWII. The Washington Times notes:

A new Quinnipiac University survey found that voters rate Mr. Obamaas the country's worst president since World War II.

Quinnipiac found 45 percent of voters say the country would have been better off if Mr. Romney had been elected, while just 38 percent say Mr. Obama remains a better choice. Even Democrats aren't so sure - just 74 percent of them told the pollsters Mr. Obamawas clearly the better pick in the last election.

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A Zogby Analytics Poll released Wednesday also found Mr. Obama slipping - in that survey, to 44 percent approval, while his disapproval jumped 4 percentage points from last month to reach 54 percent.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that only 16% of Americans have any real confidence in the government, only 19% have confidence in the media, and only 13% have confidence in large corporations:

Of course, all of these poll results are related. As Gallup points out: