Thanks to a scandal that has left veterans to die without care and the agency under investigation, the Department of Veterans Affairs is the federal government’s most hated agency.
The percentage of Americans with a favorable view of the VA rose from 57 percent to 68 percent from March 2010 to October 2013, according to Pew Research Center. Today, that percentage has plummeted to 39 percent. That’s the lowest of any federal agency, and marks the biggest decline from October 2013 to the present.
The most popular federal agencies are the United States Postal Service, the National Park Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and NASA. All four agencies enjoy more than 50 percent net favorability.
The IRS, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice all join the VA on the more-disliked end of the spectrum. Each agency has a negative favorability rating.
Scandals appear to have damaged the VA harder than the IRS. Despite possible discrimination against conservatives, the IRS has only fallen from 47 percent favorability to 42 percent from March 2010 to the present. The IRS was the most-hated federal agency in October 2013. It has since “improved” to the second most-hated, but its favorability has still declined by two percentage points since then.
Over the last two years, the VA saw its favorability drop 29 percent. The next two agencies with the largest declines dropped roughly half as much, with DOJ dropping 15 percentage points and the Food and Drug Administration dropping 14 points.
Pew also asked Americans for their views on their federal, state and local governments. Americans are much fonder of their state and local governments than the federal government. While 32 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government, 56 percent view their state government favorably. Sixty-five percent view their local government favorably, more than double the number for the federal government.
These views are true across the political spectrum. Roughly 58 percent of both Republicans and Democrats have a favorable view of their state government. The same is true at the local level, with roughly 66 percent having a favorable view.
The only ideological divide comes at the federal level. Eighteen percent of Republicans approve of the government, compared to 45 percent of Democrats.
Almost six in 10 Democrats have a favorable view of their state government, even though most Americans live in states run by Republicans.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
