President Barack Obama pledged to veto any bill that that threatens to unravel the Dodd-Frank Act’s oversight of the financial and banking industry in his State of the Union address on Jan. 20, stating that improvements in the economy made it clear that the current policies are working.
“Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don’t get in the way. We can’t slow down business or put our economy at risk with government shutdowns or fiscal showdowns,” Obama said.
Previous Congressional debates on financial policies, such as the initial defeat of H.R. 37 in the U.S. House of Representatives, have shown a returning division along party lines. Seeing as it is the everyday consumer that uses credit and debit cards or takes out a mortgage loan to purchase home, it would be helpful to know how the public actually feels about the economy and financial policies.
According to a report from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, public views and expectations for the U.S. economy have been improving. The report found that 27 percent of those surveyed described economic conditions as either excellent or good, while 24 percent called economic conditions poor, and 48 percent rated economic conditions as fair. The change, as reflected from October 2014, showed the percentage rating economic conditions as poor declined by nine points.
“This marks the first time in Obama’s presidency that about as many have described the economy as excellent or good (27 percent) as poor (24 percent),” according to the report.
There was a wide ideological difference in opinions on the issue of whether the government has gone too far in regulating financial institutions and markets. According to the survey, 47 percent thought the government had not gone far enough in regulating the financial institutions and markets, leaving the country at risk of another financial crisis, while 45 percent expressed the view that the government had gone too far, making it hard for the economy to grow.
The divide can be traced along party lines. For Republicans, 64 percent thought the government has gone too far, compared with only 30 percent of Republicans who thought it didn’t go far enough. The reverse is almost seen among Democrats, with 30 percent saying the government has gone too far and 61 percent saying the government has not gone far enough.