New poll finds voters do not want Congress focusing on Biden investigations

Since taking over control of the House of Representatives in January, congressional Republicans have devoted hours of hearing time to investigating President Joe Biden’s administration and his family. A new poll finds that the public wishes they’d instead focus on policies that impact their constituents’ lives.

In a nationwide survey of registered voters conducted this week for the progressive opposition research group Congressional Integrity Project, Public Policy Polling asked, “Generally speaking, would you rather Congress spend time investigating the Biden administration, or would you rather Congress focus on issues like rising costs and health care?”

Sixty-three percent of respondents favored a focus on health care, inflation, and similar policies; 29% preferred Biden administration investigations.

Asked, “Generally speaking, would you rather Congress spend time investigating President Biden’s family and Hunter Biden’s laptop, or would you rather Congress focus on issues like rising costs and health care?” voters chose costs and health care 61%-33%.

Republicans made addressing inflation a key issue in the 2022 midterm elections and promised to use their newly won House majority to pass legislation to lower consumer costs, but they’ve done little to address rising prices.

On March 1, the House passed a bill titled the Reduce Exacerbated Inflation Negatively Impacting the Nation Act, its acronym implying it would REIN IN inflation. But a statement posted by the House Financial Services Committee says, “This bill requires the Biden Administration to publish the inflationary impact of executive actions before enacting them.”

“This is the grand Republican plan on the economy. It’s three pages,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries observed of the bill at a March 1 press conference. “It calls for reports that many people believe to be duplicative and unnecessary. That’s their plan.”

House Republicans have passed bills that would make it more difficult for Biden and future presidents to curb energy cost spikes by releasing fuel from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and would repeal funding in the Inflation Reduction Act for improvements to the Internal Revenue Service that would, among other things, make it possible for it to recover more unpaid tax revenue owed to the Treasury by corporations and wealthy individuals.

The only health-related legislation they have passed so far has been aimed at rolling back COVID-19 safety rules.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has held hearings on the Biden family’s finances and the administration’s border policies, while the House Judiciary Committee has held hearings on alleged “weaponization of the federal government,” exploring allegations that the FBI and Justice Department are biased against conservatives.

The Public Policy Polling survey found little support for the men leading those probes. Asked their opinion of Oversight Chair James Comer, 13% of respondents said they have a favorable view and 24% said unfavorable. Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan was viewed favorably by 27% and unfavorably by 36%.

“Time and time again, the American people have made clear that they think the MAGA House Republicans’ political stunts are not what they wanted Congress to focus on,” Congressional Integrity Project senior adviser Leslie Dach said in a press release. “They want their elected officials to work on issues like health care and the economy — not partisan attacks on President Biden and his family. Instead Republicans are listening to white nationalists, election deniers and conspiracy theorists.”

In October, Arizona Republican Rep. David Schweikert was surreptitiously caught on video promising that if Republicans regained a majority in the House, Jordan (R-OH) would spend “240 days knifing the Biden administration” each year.

Biden proposed a budget on March 9 that he said would shrink the federal budget deficit by $2.9 trillion over a decade without raising taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 annually; would help reduce inflation; and would “secure Medicare through 2050 and beyond.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation