Poll: 82 percent disapprove of Congress

A record number of Americans said they disapprove of Congress in the wake of this week's move by lawmakers to approve compromise legislation to raise the nation's debt ceiling. 

Eighty-two percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released Friday. Lawmakers' approval rating stands at 14 percent, matching the low point at which Americans rated Congress in March of 2010, in the midst of the healthcare battle.

The figures suggest a deep dissatisfaction with Congress in the wake of the protracted fight over spending cuts related to the debt limit that has dominated political discussion in Washington over the past few months.

Just 14 percent of registered voters said that most members of Congress deserve reelection; 74 percent said that lawmakers don't deserve another term.

President Obama is also pummeled in the poll, though he fares better than Congress.

---

More from The Hill:
♦ Franken calls on FCC to enforce Comcast merger conditions
♦ Google, Microsoft trade barbs over patent claims
♦ Interior backs Shell's Arctic drilling plan
♦ Top Dem uses Salmonella outbreak to hammer GOP
♦ Stakeholders to feds: Reject Gov. Brown's Medicaid cuts

---

Forty-six percent of Americans said they approved of the way Obama handled his job, compared to 47 percent who expressed a disapproving view of the president, according to the poll.

The poll numbers suggest that the tarnish associated with the debt-ceiling fight has stuck to most political actors, but especially to Republicans in Congress.

Seventy-two percent of poll respondents disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled debt negotiations. (By comparison, 66 percent disapproved of Democrats' handling of the crisis.)

And House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), the primary voice for Republicans throughout the debt-ceiling fight, saw his unfavorable numbers rise, too.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they disapprove of the way Boehner is handling his job, up from 41 percent in mid-April. Boehner's approval rating barely ticked downward, but a smaller number of Americans said they had no opinion about the GOP Speaker, suggesting that voters were becoming more familiar with Boehner.

---