71% Say Government Should Let Big Troubled Banks Fail

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Rasmussen:

With JPMorgan Chase Bank, one of the nation’s biggest financial institutions, under scrutiny for its recent $2 billion in trading losses, Americans feel more strongly than ever that no bank is “too big to fail.”

Seventy-one percent (71%) say the government should let troubled banks, even ones that big, go out of business rather than find a way to keep them going, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults. That’s up 15 points from 56% in July 2010.

Just 19% think that if some of the largest banks in the country reach a point where they can no longer meet their obligations, the government should find a way to keep them in business. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on May 14, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.