Obama and the Economy: Bad leadership or Bad Luck?

So much for Obama's claims that he just has had a lot of bad luck. From Fox News:

. . . President Obama recently said his policies had gotten the economy moving again until a six-month run of bad luck set things back. That run included the earthquake in Japan, uprisings in the Middle East and the European debt crisis.

Still, by 6-to-1 voters blame the economy on bad leadership (75 percent) rather than bad luck (12 percent). That includes 89 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents and 66 percent of Democrats.

Whos providing that bad leadership? Almost half of voters -- 45 percent -- think President Obamas actions have hurt the economy. Thats 19 percentage points more than the 26 percent who say hes helped, while 28 percent say he has "not made much of a difference."

By a 28 percentage-point margin, voters are more likely to think the actions of Congressional Democrats have hurt the economy.

The assessment of Congressional Republicans is even worse: By 35 percentage points, voters think they have had a negative impact.

Lawmakers associated with the Tea Party movement fare better than either of the two major parties. Even so, by a 16-point margin, voters think they also did more harm than good. . . .

Two-thirds of voters (66 percent) think raising taxes during an economic downturn is a bad idea. Theres a wide 39-percentage point partisan gap on this issue: 86 percent of Republicans think its a bad idea compared to 47 percent of Democrats.

Independents are three times as likely to say raising taxes in a down economy is a bad idea (67 percent) as to say its a good idea (22 percent).

That said, 57 percent of voters think it is a good idea to tax the wealthiest Americans more because it will help grow the economy and reduce the deficit.

Yet most doubt the tax increases recently proposed by President Obama will be used to reduce the deficit. By a 61-26 percent margin, voters think that money would primarily be used to fund more government spending. . . .