While the Obama Administration is pledging up to $2.5 trillion in support for the troubled U.S. financial system, 56% of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government.

Twenty percent (20%) support such assistance, and 24% are not sure...

...Fifty-nine percent (59%) say they oppose the $700-billion bank bailout plan that was proposed by the Bush Administration and approved by Congress early last October after the highly publicized failure of Lehman Brothers brought Wall Street's growing problems home to Main Street. Half of that money is being channeled into the new bailout plan.

Twenty percent (20%) say the first bailout plan was a good idea, and 21% are undecided.

The new numbers represent a jump in opposition to the first plan. Forty-five percent (45%) opposed it at the time it was passed, while 30% supported it. A sizable majority expected Wall Street to benefit more than taxpayers from the bailout, but those numbers also are higher now.

The plurality of Americans (46%) say the earlier bailout plan has had no impact on the U.S. economy. Thirty-six percent (36%) think it has made things worse, while just nine percent (9%) say it has helped the economy.

Note that not only do Americans strongly oppose any further bank bailouts, they've become considerably more opposed to the original TARP plan. This is not going to be an exception to the rule; it will be a trend.

That means the Democrats have a choice: continue to compulsively push ever more unpopular spending programs or give up on handing out goodies, which is about 75% of the party's appeal. The smart money would be on the former, not the latter, but either way it's good for the Republican Party.

Summary: We don't know how the economy is going to look in 2010, what all the key issues of the election will be, how popular Obama will be, how well the GOP will work together over the next two years or a number of other things.

However, it has already become very apparent that if the GOP can hold the line on spending, it will not only fire up our base and be good for the country, it will give us an enormous stick with which to savagely beat the Democrats in the 2010 elections.