Full speed ahead!

Nation's Business, Jan, 1997

By overwhelming majorities, respondents to a recent Nation's Business poll believe the public is ready for action by Congress and the president on the most important issues of the day.

In the Where I Stand poll in the November issue, readers were asked whether they believed Americans were ready for important national matters to be resolved through legislation or whether they believed more public education was necessary first.

The issues included balancing the federal budget, overhauling Social Security, and Medicare, restructuring the tax system and cutting taxes for individuals and businesses, and reducing federal regulatory requirements on business.

Action on the 1997 agenda will be up to President Clinton and the Republican-led 105th Congress. Voters in November opted for two more years of divided government; they handed Clinton a second term but kept Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, thus giving the GOP the power to set the Capitol Hill agenda.

Clinton and the 104th Congress failed to agree on several major issues, including how to balance the federal budget, avoid bankruptcy for Medicare, overhaul federal education and job-training programs, and ease the regulatory burden on businesses.

However, it's expected that Clinton and the GOP Congress will be less confrontational than they were for most of 1995-96 because voters made it clear they want more cooperation to solve problems.

Here are the complete results: