New Poll Finds Bush Priorities Are Out of Step With Americans
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at 11:05AM
TheSpook
Americans say President Bush does not
share the priorities of most of the country on either domestic or
foreign issues, are increasingly resistant to his proposal to revamp
Social Security and say they are uneasy with Mr. Bush's ability to make
the right decisions about the retirement program, according to the
latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll underscores just how
little headway Mr. Bush has made in his effort to build popular support
as his proposal for overhauling Social Security struggles to gain
footing in Congress. At the same time, there has been an increase in
respondents who say that efforts to restore order in Iraq are going
well, even as an overwhelming number of Americans say Mr. Bush has no
clear plan for getting out of Iraq. On Social Security, 51 percent said
permitting individuals to invest part of their Social Security taxes in
private accounts, the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's plan, was a bad idea,
even as a majority said they agreed with Mr. Bush that the program
would become insolvent near the middle of the century if nothing was
done until then. The number who thought private accounts were a bad
idea jumped to 69 percent if respondents were told that the private
accounts would result in a reduction in guaranteed benefits. And 45
percent said Mr. Bush's private account plan would actually weaken the
economic underpinnings of the nation's retirement system.
Notwithstanding Mr. Bush's argument that citizens should be given more
control over their retirement savings, almost four out of five
respondents said it was the government's responsibility to assure a
decent standard of living for the elderly. The poll was the first
conducted by The Times and CBS News since the president's inauguration.[more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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