Sen. John Cornyn says Americans rate getting back to work as national priority

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, heartily welcomed Republican Scott Brown’s upset win Tuesday of a Senate seat in Massachusetts — a victory that’ll soon give the GOP the 41 Senate seats needed to filibuster legislation to foil the Democratic majority.

Cornyn, who doubles as chairman of a political committee devoted to electing GOP senators, was asked by the Fox News Channel on Wednesday what Republicans should do with the message sent by Massachusetts voters.

Cornyn initially mentioned public concern about Democrats’ closed-door rewrites of a health care overhaul. But, Cornyn continued, this "is a matter also of misplaced priorities and the No. 1 issue that the American people care about is getting America back to work."

We wondered if Cornyn correctly pegged Americans' priority issue.

Indeed, a recent national poll places the economy at the top of voter concerns. In the poll taken Jan. 12-15 for The Washington Post and ABC News, 42 percent of respondents identified the economy as the most important problem they’d like to see President Obama and Congress address this year.  Among those economy-focused respondents, 26 percent singled out jobs/employment as a priority.

The second-highest-rated issue was health care, named as the first concern of 24 percent.

Similarly, a poll taken Jan. 10-14 by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News found jobs topping Americans’ concerns. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said job creation and economic growth was the top priority. Thirteen percent chose national security/terrorism and 13 percent said the deficit and government spending.

So the senator got it right. Americans consider jobs the No. 1 issue right now. We rate Cornyn’s statement True.

Featured Fact-check

Democratic National Committee

stated on January 20, 2010 in a press release

"Under (Rick Perry’s) watch as governor, over six million Texans have no health care coverage, including one million children, homeowners suffer from the highest insurance rates in the country, and college tuition has skyrocketed 136 percent."