Washington ( CNN ) -- It 's a problem that has been around for awhile , and the longer it stays , the tougher it is to reverse . That 's because it 's a riddle that 's almost impossible to resolve : Americans want the government to fix our problems , but they do n't trust the government to do it . We want health care to be fixed , Medicare and Social Security to stay intact , emergencies to be handled . We also want lower taxes along with a smaller—yet more responsive—government . All in all , we would like to spend less and get more . Small wonder we do n't believe government can do it , because it can not . According to the latest CNN/ORC poll , the public 's trust in the federal government has dropped to an all-time low : Only 15 % of Americans today say they trust the government to do what 's right just about always or most of the time—down 10 points from about a year ago . The last time that number was perilously close to rock bottom was in 1994 , after Bill Clinton lost health care reform . And it prompted the president to famously declare `` the era of big government is over . '' Only it is n't . And that 's the essential conundrum for Barack Obama . He 's been a big-agenda president . He sees himself as transformational , so anything less would not do . But the more he did—economic stimulus , health care reform— the more the public recoiled . They did n't see the results , and hated the partisanship . All of which makes sense . Even the president himself , back in 2009 , admitted he had n't laid the groundwork for his big agenda . After all , how can you convince the public to expand the government while most people believe it 's bloated and out of control ? `` I understand that people are feeling uncertain about this . They feel anxious , partly because we 've just become so cynical about what government can accomplish that people 's attitudes are , you know , even though I do n't like this devil , at least I know it , and I like that more than the devil I do n't know , '' the president said at a press conference in the middle of the health care debate . `` So folks are skeptical . And that is entirely legitimate , because they have n't seen a lot of laws coming out of Washington lately that helped them . '' All of which is true . But here 's where leadership comes in—and has been lacking . The public distrusts government because its leaders have n't been able to work together to produce much of anything . Sure , we want it all—and that 's our fault . But if we had some honest politicians out there , on both sides of the aisle , saying we ca n't have it all , we just might listen to them . Instead , we hear each side yammering about how the other guys solutions will kill the country or jobs or your bank account , so we figure we ca n't trust any of them . It 's perfectly reasonable to feel that way . In fact , I would make the argument that—after watching the debt ceiling debacle—it would be strange to feel anything other than disrespect for Washington . And the more Congress fools with people 's lives—like playing games over emergency funding—the more the public turns off . And it 's not going to get any better the closer we get to an election . It is true that distrust of government is nothing new . It 's also not news that we want the government to solve our problems even though we think it 's full of scoundrels . `` There is nothing new about this ambivalence , '' scholars , and former Clinton administration officials , Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck point out in an essay called `` Change you can believe in requires a government you can trust . '' They also make this important point : It 's up to the president to lead . 'How ... the president deals with it may make the difference between success and failure . '' The problem for Obama now is that he has dealt with the problems in all ways : As the partisan and as the conciliator . Yes , the often-recalcitrant freshmen Republicans have backed him into a corner , because they refuse to deal on much of anything . Even so , the president 's initial identity—as a change-agent who can fix Washington—is gone . Ronald Reagan understood the public 's skepticism about government . He often joked that the scariest sentence in America is `` I 'm from the government and I 'm here to help . '' This president 's problem is that he wants the government to help—only he has n't been able to convince the public that government has changed . That 's because it has n't . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gloria Borger .
New CNN/ORC poll finds trust in government dropped to all-time low . The survey found that just 36% of Americans have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the federal government, down from 47% last year. She says Americans do n't believe government can solve problems . Borger : Obama has n't demonstrated leadership needed to reverse trend .