Been down so long it looks like up to me

Congress' approval rating stands at 31 percent, but that's almost twice what it was before the midterm elections.

Published March 9, 2007 4:18PM (EST)

The bad news for members of Congress: In a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, only 31 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Congress is doing. The good news for members of Congress: That's roughly twice as many as approved in October, before the Democrats took control.

A point of comparison: George W. Bush's approval rating stands at 35 percent in the new poll, a few ticks down from where it was before the midterm elections.

Although the poll's respondents are split pretty evenly on whether Congress should restrict funding for Iraq as a way to limit Bush's ability to send more troops there -- 44 percent favor such a move while 48 percent oppose it -- they said by a 10-point margin they're more concerned that Congress will do too little to push Bush to reduce troop levels than they are that Congress will do too much.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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