In the wake of the White House’s latest stimulus package, the CEO’s and business leaders on the COMPAS business panel were asked a multitude of questions on President Obama’s performance and about assignment of responsibility for the recession.

The U.S. President is blamed hardly at all but confidence in his performance is moderate and falling. His economic performance score is 57 on a 100 point scale—lower than many of the scores the panel gives to Stephen Harper but higher than many of the scores given to the federal Liberals in the latter part of the Jean Chretien period in Canada. Forty-two percent say that their confidence in Obama is falling while 12% say that their confidence is rising.

Hardly any of the panelists blame the President’s “high spending, high regulation policies” for the current economic situation. Likewise, few blame the U.S. Federal Reserve for keeping rates too low under Bush and Clinton. The greatest blame is assigned to the Congress for mortgage policies that contributed to the housing boom and bust and to years of American governments living beyond their means.

Few panelists believe that the Obama stimulus package is the right thing to do. Most agree that it is difficult to re-ignite the economy when business hesitates to spend for fear of high taxes and greater regulation under Obama. Most agree that short-term infrastructure spending spikes like the one entailed under the Obama stimulus package produce high profits without increasing the capacity of the industries involved in infrastructure.

“Obama and his policies and dogma have not caused the current situation,” observed one panelist in reflecting the sense of the panel. “But [he] will exacerbate and prolong this economic downturn and prevent the decisive action needed to fully rectify the underlying causes.”

These are the key findings from this past week’s Internet survey of CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS panel. The weekly business survey is undertaken for Canadian Business magazine under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP.

View / Download complete poll in PDF