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Politics

Poll shows low confidence in government competence

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - The public has little faith that the government is adequately screening visitors to the country or could cope with an outbreak of an infectious disease, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

19 percent said the government is doing enough to scrutinize people crossing the border into the United States. Skepticism was expressed most sharply by older people, whites, the less educated and rural residents.

80 percent of conservatives said the government does not do enough to check visitors.

60 percent of liberals said the government does not do enough to check visitors

41 percent expressed confidence in the government's ability to handle an epidemic. The biggest doubters included rural residents, Democrats and independent voters, and liberals and moderates. About two-thirds of Democrats and independents said they were not confident about the government's performance, as did about half of Republicans.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted June 4-6. It involved telephone interviews with 1, 000 randomly chosen adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[Last modified July 7, 2007, 01:36:38]