Voters Strongly Disapprove of Obama's Handling of Economy, Health Care and Deficit Spending

Osama bin Laden's capture was big international news. Regardless of where one stands on the issue, it's hard to deny that the development was a major public-relations win for President Obama. While he initially experienced a noticeable bump in the polls during the weeks following the incident, his approval rating has since been on the decline.

The modest initial increase in approval and the subsequent decline may corroborate the notion that regardless of what happens during Obama's presidency, the public is most worried about and, thus, responsive to the lagging economy.

Currently, Obama's approval rating is 47.6 percent (based on Real Clear Politics' average), with 46.9 percent of the nation disapproving of the job he is doing. But, the situation looks a bit darker when exploring where the public stands on various portions of the president's job performance.

In taking into consideration recent polls conducted by CNN, The Weekly Standard provides an excellent overview of the issues that are most important to voters:

The issues that respondents most often listed as being “extremely important” were the economy (51 percent), health care (45 percent), unemployment (45 percent), and federal deficits (44 percent).

In another recent poll, CNN recently registered Americans’ verdicts on how President Obama is doing in meeting their expectations on most of these issues:  By a margin of 17 points (58 to 41 percent), Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. By a margin of 17 points (57 to 40 percent), they disapprove of his handling of health care. By a margin of 30 points (64 to 34 percent), they disapprove of his handling of federal deficits.

The public continues to be most concerned with the nation's economic standing, health care, the ongoing unemployment debacle and debt and deficit spending. The majority of the nation has a very negative view of the president's job performance in many of these areas.

If unemployment and economic conditions do not improve, if measures are not put in place to control deficit spending and if the cost of health care continues to skyrocket, the president may face an uphill battle next year. CBS News discusses the challenges Obama may face:

Yesterday, the president said that the economic slump was "years in the making" and that "it will take years to get back to where we need to be."

What do you think of President Obama's economic policies? Which issues will impact your vote in 2012?