Confidence in Congress drops to historic low

By Ed O'Keefe, WashPost, Updated: June 13, 2013

Lawmakers looking to become more popular with Americans should consider working at a bank. Or for a newspaper.

Americans’ confidence in the House and Senate has dropped so low that it now ranks as the least popular societal institution in U.S. history, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.

Public confidence in Congress is at just 10 percent, its lowest mark in the history of Gallup surveys, and more than half of Americans — 52 percent — say they have little or no confidence in lawmakers.

Making matters far worse, Congress ranks last on a list of 16 such institutions for the fourth consecutive year, lower than HMOs (19 percent), organized labor (20 percent), banks (26 percent) — even newspapers (23 percent) (Side note: Why, America, do you consistently hate newspapers? Hmm??).

(More here.)