What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending December 23, 2017

Americans are feeling record level economic confidence going into Christmas and the new year, and Congress’ passage this week of the biggest reform of the U.S. tax code in decades is likely to fan the flames even higher.  

President Trump promised the American people a giant tax cut for Christmas, and the GOP-led Congress delivered. That's the subject of this week's Rasmussen Minute.

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Two-out-of-three Republicans (66%) and 50% of voters not affiliated with either major party think tax cuts help the economy. But just 22% of Democrats agree.

Most voters—and even nearly half of Democrats—said last month that it was important that Congress pass tax reform legislation by the year’s end. Earlier this month, however, just 49% thought tax cuts were likely by the end of the year.

Congress also agreed to a temporary budget deal to avoid a government shutdown. Most voters think a shutdown would be bad for the economy, although the vast majority admit that past shutdowns have had little, if any, impact on them personally.

Voters are feeling optimistic again about the country’s future. But still only 35% think the country is headed in the right direction.

The president in a major America First national security speech on Monday announced plans for a layered system to defend the country against missile attacks. Voters strongly support the idea of an enhanced missile defense system since they don't have much confidence in the ability of what we've developed so far to protect the country.

Just 30% think U.S. foreign policy in recent years has put America first. Ninety-four percent (94%) agree with the president that a strong economy is important to U.S. national security, with 70% who say it is Very Important.

National security now ties the Trump administration’s alleged ties to Russia as voters’ number one concern.

But with recent news reports and e-mails showing anti-Trump bias by several senior level FBI and Justice Department officials, nearly half of voters now believe there was an illegal effort last year to deny Trump the presidency.

The president ended the week with a 44% job approval rating in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Rasmussen Reports is taking a polling break for the long Christmas weekend. The daily Presidential Tracking Poll will not be updated again until Wednesday, December 27.

After starting off at a record pace, Americans have slowed their holiday shopping, with a sizable number who still hadn’t started with Christmas just a weekend away. But only 40% had finished the holiday shopping at the beginning of the week.

Americans overwhelmingly continue to celebrate Christmas, and it remains the nation's top holiday, edging out Independence Day as the most important holiday of the year for Americans.  

But 74% think Christmas is over-commercialized. Sixty-eight percent (68%) believe Christmas should be more about Jesus Christ than about Santa Claus.

For most Americans, there’s no place like home for the holidays. Christmas cards appear to be a tradition that’s falling by the wayside, though. 

A sizable majority, however, plans to make a charitable donation of some kind again this year.

In other surveys last week:

-- Trump is expected to push a massive government-private program to repair America’s infrastructure early in the new year. While Americans don’t think too highly of infrastructure where they live, just 35% are willing to pay anything extra in taxes to upgrade it.

-- Voters approve of the president’s plans for joint government-private sector missions to the moon.

-- But just 30% of Americans would travel into space on a commercial flight if they could afford it.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.