Sixty percent of Americans, including a growing number of Democrats and blacks, say the government has too much power, tying the previous high, from 2013, for the question, according to a new Gallup poll.
It's the third year in a row that at least 59 percent of the public has said the government has too much power. The number rose from 51 percent in 2009, President Obama's first year in office, to 59 percent by his second year in 2010, after the passage of Obama's health care law, the Affordable Care Act. It then decreased slightly to 57 percent in 2011.
"Overall, the average percentage who thought the government was too powerful during Obama's first term-2009 to 2012-was 54%," Gallup said. "This term, the average has risen to 60%."
In the latest survey, only 32 percent said the government has about the right amount of power, while 7 percent said it has too little power.
The rise in concerns over the government's power can largely be attributed to Democrats, moderates and independents, who are becoming increasingly worried. In Obama's first term, only 24 percent of Democrats held that view, while in his second term, that number rose to 37 percent. For moderates, 44 percent held the view in his first term, while now a majority of moderates, 57 percent, believe the government has too much power.
Independents holding this view rose from 59 percent in Obama's first term to 64 percent in his second. Republicans have stayed consistent in their views, with 80 percent now saying the government has too much power.
Along racial lines, the largest increase was among blacks, with a 20 percentage point increase from Obama's first term to his second, going from 28 percent to 48 percent - a potent statistic considering Obama is the nation's first black president.
"In the years prior to the election of Obama as the first black president, blacks generally were more concerned than the general public about the federal government having too much power," Gallup's Jim Norman wrote. "Obama's victory in the 2008 election led to a huge drop over the next year in the number of blacks having these concerns. Since Obama's re-election, polls the past three years have all shown a resurgence in blacks' concerns about government power."
The telephone survey was conducted from Sept. 9-13 among a random sample of 1,025 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
