Nearly three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Republicans' handling of the budget crisis, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll released Monday.

Disapproval of the GOP, which has risen steadily since just before the government shutdown began, is now at 74 percent, up 11 points from late September.

“One of my favorite old Kentucky sayings is there’s no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of a mule was when we shut the government down in the mid-1990s and the second kick was over the last 16 days,” he said. “There is no education in the second kick of a mule. There will not be a government shutdown.

“I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is,” he added.

While most voters give President Obama a passing grade on the economy, nearly three times as many think he deserves an “F” as say he should get an “A,” according to a new Fox News poll.

Meanwhile, the poll also finds an increasing number of voters think the worst is yet to come for the economy.

When asked to grade Obama for the job he’s done on improving the economy, nine percent give him an “A,” while 22 percent give him a “B” and 22 percent a “C.” A sizable minority thinks he deserves a grade of “D” (14 percent) or “F” (24 percent). Another nine percent give an “incomplete.”

That makes the president’s grade-point average 1.78, which is a C-minus. That’s about the same as Obama received in 2012.

Weather disruptions at home and weak demand abroad caused a contraction of rare severity in the U.S. economy in the first quarter, renewing doubts about the strength of the nation's five-year-old recovery.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, fell at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said in its third reading of the data Wednesday.

That was a sharp downward revision from the previous estimate that output fell at an annual rate of 1%. It also represented the fastest rate of decline since the recession, and was the largest drop recorded since the end of World War II that wasn't part of a recession.

To be sure, many signs since March, including reports of growth in consumer spending, business investment and hiring, indicate the first quarter doesn't mark the start of a new recession. And revisions in future years could alter the first-quarter figure.

J.P. Morgan Chase economist Michael Feroli described the decline as "mostly a confluence of several negative, but mostly one-off, factors."

But the severity of the drop, he said, "calls into question how much vigor there is in the pace of activity" going forward.