Americans Pick Obama Over Congress on Debt

E-pollster John Zogby updates our weekly Obama Report Card with a grade on the president's performance. Zogby uses his polling, expert analysis, and interaction with major players to come up with a grade and some comments that capture how he sees the president's week ending.

John Zogby on Week: 149

"Washington is an immediate loser from the debt super committee's failure to reach agreement on a deficit reduction package. That includes Barack Obama. However, he could come out ahead in this mess. The president quickly insisted on the automatic cuts called for in the August debt ceiling legislation to go into effect, and that he would veto any bill to circumvent that. Our IBOPE Zogby interactive polling shows voters agreeing by 2 to 1 with Obama. The poll also found 80 percent wanting any deficit reduction to consider its impact on jobs, a position friendly to Obama's push for Congress to act on his jobs bill. And when we asked voters what they would like to see or not see in a deficit reduction bill, opinion was closer to that of Obama than of the GOP, including the Republican insistence to protect tax cuts for the wealthy."

This week's grade: C+

Last week's: C+

John Zogby is chairman of the board and chief insights officer for IBOPE Zogby International, a non-partisan public opinion, research, and business solutions firm with experience working in more than 70 countries around the globe. IBOPE Zogby International specializes in telephone, Internet, and face-to-face survey research and analysis for corporate, political, nonprofit, and governmental clients. The firm is headquartered in Utica, N.Y. John Zogby is also the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House).

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