the u.s. house is back tuesday for legislative work. this week's schedule includes bills preventing family violence and strengthening the rights of nursing mothers. taking a longer view, majority leader hoyer has had to expect work on infrastructure and social spending in the next three weeks. he also said democrats are exploring options to change or modify the debt limit, and may consider legislation to do so as early as this month. watch the house live on c-span and the senate on c-span2. both are also available online at c-span.org, or on the go with c-span now, our new video app. >> washington unfiltered. c-span in your pocket. download c-span now today. facebook and our twitter feed is available @cspanwj. the headline is americans revert

to favorite reduced government role. joining us is to talk is the u.s. social research director. thank you for your time. guest: hello. host: what prompted this poll? we take up all -- guest: we take a poll every year. it is called our government survey. we ask on a different topic and have been doing this since 2000. in september we asked all about government, what americans think about government power, all levels of government, federal state, and local on their performance. quite great trends updating this year after year. host: one of the specific questions is about the role of government as far as doing too much. 52% of those respondents said that was the case. 42% said government needs to do more to solve problems. comparing that to 2020, 143%

wanted government to do more. those are the numbers. give us the context of the result? guest: to repeat, we give people three options, would you rather have more government services, less government services, or keeping the status quo. we have not asked it every year. the largest response is always a preference for less services and reduced taxes. last year that dipped. the 42% had been 56% earlier in the decade. in september, the final months of the trump administration, still in deep lockdown, that point only 42% wanted less government. a record high at that time said

they wanted more government, even if more taxes. this year we went back towards normal with 50% thing we want less government and less taxes in the present wanting more government and more taxes -- host: one of the other questions you ask people about the government having too much power, we will show people the results. that questions proposed amongst republicans, democrats, and independents come 82% of republicans saying they thought the government had too much power compared to 59% of independents. 63% of democrats say government has the right amount of power. how these numbers compared to previous ones? guest: that is a question where we did not see any change in overall attitudes. we had 54% this year sing the federal government has too much power. you're saying there has not been a change.

the response is typically the government has too much power. there has been a huge change by party. republicans typically are the ones that think the government has too much power but there less likely to think that when there is republican in office. last year 61% of republican said the government had too much power, this year that went up to 82%. 82 percent is about what republicans were saying turn the obama years. that is a typical attitude. democrats said 51% said the governments had too much power, that has plunged to 19%. in the context of everything that is happening in washington with discussions of infrastructure spending is that 19% among democrats is a record low, even lower than the percentage during the obama years. democrats obviously in more of a

growth mode in terms of government. host: you also asked people about what the government does and whether those types of things could be done by individuals or businesses. can you give us the context? guest: this is a trend that goes back to 1992. you think the government is doing too many things that should be left individuals and businesses and should to be doing more to solve the country's problems? these attitudes have waxed and waned over the years depending on circumstances in the country and the presidency, whether it is republican and democrat and how active they are. last year we saw one of the rare times that half or more of americans said they wanted the government to be doing more. it was 54% last year, this year it has fallen back to 43%, which is more typical of recent years. huge party differences on that. 80% of republicans think the

government is doing too much and only 18% of democrats agree. host: as far as this poll is concerned, any other interesting things you found other than the questions we had talked about? guest: just that there is eight tied that affects everybody in terms of the circumstances of the country, whether pandemic or a recession. demand for government changes a bit. it seems so much by party, there two factors going on. what is interesting is to follow the independents. on that basis, attitudes have been steady on these questions, except for last year, when independents clearly showed more desire for government than they usually do. this year it is back to normal.

host: the u.s. social research director for gallup who took this poll. you can find the results online

>> the top two candidates in boston's nonpartisan mayoral election took part in a one-hour debate hosted by wbz tv in boston. they discussed public housing, homelessness, public education, and police reform. the winner of the election will replace marty walsh, who has been serving as labor secretary since march. >> a special welcome to our radio listeners across the city on wbz