Pew Research
Center compiled polling data on public
trust in government from 1958 to 2014 in a handy interactive chart that
everyone should spend a lot of time staring at this election cycle. Aside from
brief spikes in trust following the First Gulf War in 1991 and the attacks of
September 11, trust in government has been declining steadily since the first
years of the Johnson administration.
Notice the only two spans during which public trust in
government actually grew: the Reagan and Clinton years—eras marked by
bipartisan cooperation between the White House and Congress. Although Ronald
Reagan was always a staunch conservative, he worked with Democratic Speaker Tip
O’Neill to pass a major tax reform in his first term and comprehensive
immigration reform in his second. During Bill Clinton’s first term, the 1994
midterm elections put Republicans in charge of the House for the first time
since 1952, and Clinton responded by working with Speaker Newt Gingrich to pass
welfare reform and a balanced budget, among other initiatives.
This cooperation
was possible only because Reagan and Clinton were able to fracture coalitions
within the opposing party. They couldn’t just ram through White House policies
with one-party supermajorities, as Obama has done. Voters saw Republicans and
Democrats (at least some of them) working together to pass major legislation,
and that helped build Americans’ confidence in government throughout these two
administrations.
