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Even
as Americans' trust in government eroded in recent years, people kept
faith in a handful of agencies and institutions admired for their
steadiness in ensuring the country's protection.
To
safeguard the president, there was the solidity of the Secret Service.
To stand vigil against distant enemies, the U.S. nuclear missile corps
was assumed to be on the job. And to ward off threats to public health,
the nation counted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now,
in the space of just a few months, the reputations of all those
agencies - as well as the Veterans Administration - have been tarred by
scandal or tarnished by doubt. Maybe a public buffeted by partisan
rhetoric and nonstop news should be used to this by now. But, with the
CDC facing tough questions about its response to the Ebola outbreak,
something feels different. Government is about doing collectively what
citizens can't do alone, but its effectiveness is premised on trust.
A
year ago, with Washington shut down and trust in government near
records lows, the CDC still won a 75 percent approval rating, the
highest of any federal agency, a poll by the Pew Research Center found.
But when CBS News surveyed Americans in mid-October, just 37 percent
said the agency was doing a good or excellent job.
"I
always called the CDC the shining star of the federal agencies," said
Lawrence O. Gostin, an expert on health law and policy at Georgetown
University. "They were regarded with very high esteem and did an
extraordinarily good job of protecting the American people. That has
changed and I think (doubts about its handling of) Ebola is the epitome
of that change."
That likely reflects the
fears stirred by the disease - while people trust public health
officials ordinarily, there is a heightened sensitivity now to perceived
breaches in that confidence, said Nathan Carter, a University of
Georgia psychology professor who has looked at declining trust in
institutions over the last four decades.
But
the speed with which the agency was held up for blame also reflects the
overall degradation in trust, he said. The public and elected lawmakers
are far less likely now than in the past to give government officials
the benefit of the doubt or the room to make mistakes.
Faith
in government has been declining since the Vietnam War and Watergate,
with most of that distrust directed at elected officials, said Carroll
Doherty, director of political research for Pew.
The
balance between trust and doubt has swung increasingly toward the
latter, Carter said. "I do think it's a big problem and how to repair
that trust, that's probably the biggest question."
The
public's positive views of the CDC go back many years. But the results
of last year's poll by Pew are particularly striking now because many of
the other agencies atop the rankings then have also since been
tarnished.
The Homeland Security Department
won a 66 percent approval rating a year ago. But that was before the
Secret Service, which is a part of the agency, was caught in a number of
lapses: among them, the agency's failure to stop a man armed with a
knife from scaling the fence and running into White House and the
unchecked entry of an armed contractor onto an elevator with the
president. In the new CBS news poll, just 38 percent of those questioned
rated the Secret Service's performance as good or excellent and 43
percent did so for its parent department.
The
Veterans Administration was viewed favorably by 68 percent of those
polled last year. But it too has since been swept up in a scandal over
long wait times for veterans seeking care and records that were
falsified to camouflage the problems. In the CBS poll, just 30 percent
rated the VA as doing a good job.
It's
impossible to know if the public's misgivings about the agencies are
just temporary setbacks, and results from different polls may not be
directly comparable. Researchers point out that Americans' views of
government swing back and forth, depending on what's happening with the
economy and national security.
It's certainly
not the first time that the CDC has been targeted for criticism. In
1976, when nearly 200 people who'd attended an American Legion
convention in Philadelphia fell ill and more than two dozen died, the
agency was criticized for being slow to find the cause.
Over
the years, the agency has had some "rough days," said Elizabeth
Etheridge, author of "Sentinel for Health: A History of the Centers for
Disease Control," published in 1992. "It's not unusual for the CDC to be
involved in controversies. Medicine, as you know, is not perfect."
U.S.
voters have long shown a split personality when it comes their views on
government. More and more people distrust a government symbolized by a
deadlocked Congress. But many have continued to vest considerable trust
in the agencies, programs and government workers delivering the services
people count on.
"I think it's actually an
enormously important disjuncture," said Marc Hetherington, a Vanderbilt
University political scientist who studies voter trust. "Government has a
really bad reputation, but no one wants to do away with any of it."
The
nation's deepened partisan divide has further undermined that trust.
Republican voters are more suspicious of government led by the current
Democratic president. Democratic-leaning voters were deeply distrustful
of the government when it was led by George W. Bush, researchers say.
Ahead
of next week's midterm elections, polls show many voters deeply
dissatisfied with government's performance and ready to place blame on
President Barack Obama and his party's candidates.
But
Carter said data on public trust over time is worrisome because it
shows that even when events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
rally people around the government, the peaks of trust are never as high
as in the past. It points to a gradual but unmistakable degradation in
the public's belief in its institutions that he finds worrisome.
If
Americans' belief in their government continues to ebb, he said, its
raises the inevitable question: How long before trust runs out?
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