Listen Up Congress. The Survey Says...

(Editor's Note: Paul Schatz, President of Heritage Capital, LLC, in Woodbridge, will be contributing to Fi$callyFit every Friday. Read his biography here)


For the past few entries, I posted this link to a Very Short Survey asking your opinion on a number of “hot” topics. I’d like to focus this week’s contribution on those results and how they compare to the exact same survey I did for subscribers of my Street$marts report.

Before I begin, I received several emails questioning whether The Unsuccessful Investor (TUI) from last week's article was a real person or I just made it sound like it. TUI does, in fact, exist and it’s someone I have known for many, many, many years. Now, on to the results.

First, I am going to share the results from your answers and then I am going to share the responses from my newsletter. Growing up, I used to watch Family Feud with former Hogan's Heros star Richard Dawson. His famous line, after kissing all the women was,

"The survey says..."

The government’s TOP priority should be:

59% Job Creation
17% Healthcare Reform
16% Deficit Reduction
5% Wars

That compares to my list of:

61% Job Creation
24% Deficit Reduction
10% Healthcare Reform
6% Wars

In 2008, I voted for:

60% Obama
35% McCain

That compares to my list of:

34% Obama
59% McCain

Based in the past year, I would:

53% Reelect Obama
47% Elect someone else

That compares to my list of:

27% Reelect Obama
73% Elect someone else

Congress is doing a:

87% Poor job
13% Good job

That compares to my list of:

93% Poor job
7% Good job

My income level in 2009 was:

21% <$50,000
50% $50,000 - $125,000
28% $125,000 - $250,000 1% >$250,000

That compares to my list of:

11% <$50,000
26% $50,000 - $125,000
37% $125,000 - $250,000
26% >$250,000

Overall, you feel that job creation should be the government’s top priority and I imagine that holds true throughout the country. You voted for Barack Obama, pretty much in line with the rest of the state, which is in stark contrast to my newsletter readers who supported McCain by a sizable margin. Not surprising at all, more than half would reelect Obama, versus my newsletter readers who would elect someone else by an enormous margin. That’s expected since they didn’t vote for him in the first place.

It seems almost universal that the vast majority of folks do not think Congress is doing a good job, but do we ever? I wonder how high that’s been in the past 20 years. My guess is, not very. The total disdain and disapproval of Congress has to be at an all time low. Judging by the overwhelming number of comments, which I did not publish, there seems to be some serious venom for both parties and everyone is sick and tired of the partisan politics, lying and failure to do what their voters elected them to do.

Thank you for participating in the survey. It always interesting to see where people stand on the hot issues of the moment.

Please feel free to email me with any questions or comments at Paul@investfortomorrow.com.

Until next time…

Paul Schatz

Heritage Capital LLC
http://www.investfortomorrow.com/