Americans doubt US govt. can solve problems: Poll

More than 6 in 10 respondents were only slightly confident or were not at all that the federal government can resolve significant issues in 2016, according to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
 
Terrorism, health care, immigration, education, and unemployment topped the list of the public’s priorities for this year, showed the survey, which was conducted in December.
 
42 percent of Republicans and 42 to 30 percent of Democrats cited terrorism as a priority. Immigration was another issue which 43 percent of Republicans and 21 percent of Democrats said it has to be dealt with as a top priority.
 
Two-thirds of respondents regard economic issues as their priority, while about 4 in 5 named a domestic policy other than the economy.
 
The poll also shows no important difference in the outlook between Republicans and Democrats as the first voting nears in the presidential race.
 
"They can't even seem to get together and pass anything that's of any importance," said Doris Wagner, an 81-year-old Republican from Alabama.
 
Wagner said she's "not at all confident" that there would be any solution in 2016. "It's so self-serving what they do."
 
71-year-old Democrat Lee Cato from Texas said that a system of "lobbyists paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to get Congress to do what they want" for favored industry.
 
"They aren't doing anything for you and me," she added.
 
Also, Joe Flood, a GOP-leaning independent, described the executive branch as a bureaucratic behemoth and the legislative branch as an endlessly partisan wrangle.
 
"That's why government can't get anything done," he said.
 
According to one-fifth of Republicans, the federal budget deficit is another problem, while only less than a one-tenth of Democrats had similar opinion.
 
Other issues, including guns, education, crime, racial problems, the environment and climate change were cited by more Democrats than Republicans.
 
The AP-NORC Poll surveyed 1,042 adults on Dec. 10-13, 2015 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, designed to be representative of the US population.
 
The margin of sampling error for all respondents was plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.