 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
March 18, 2005
Little Impact for Bush Offensives on Democracy and Social Security
By Mark Schulman
With President Bush on the offensive both in promoting democracy abroad and in pushing for a revamp of the Social Security System at home, the latest national Time Poll finds his efforts having little impact on the President's job rating or in garnering support for his proposed personal investment accounts.
The poll, conducted March 15-17, finds Bush's overall job approval rating has held steady at 53% approval - 43% disapprove, unchanged since mid-January. A majority, 54%, now disapprove of his handling of Social Security issues, up 5 points since January, when the President first turned up the heat on Social Security reform with personal investment accounts. Only 37% approve of the President's handling of Social Security, down 3 points from January.
- Half of Americans, 51% - 44%, still find the country headed off on the wrong track, little changed from past months.
Bush Drive Changes Few Minds
Bush's recent barnstorming to add personal investment accounts into Social Security has changed few minds thus far, with support even slipping slightly.
- Crisis or not? The public remains divided on whether Social Security needs drastic overhaul to avert a crisis. While 43% believe there's a crisis, 48% say that this is just a scare tactic, little changed from mid-January. In fact, the percentage believing that it's a scare tactic is up 4 percentage points.
- Personal Investment Accounts? A slight majority, 52% now oppose the President's plan to create personal investment accounts, up slightly from 47% in mid-January. Only 40% now favor change, down 4 points.
As Congress heads home for the Easter break, they'll find that the President's plan is least popular among those ages 55 and older, who oppose the overhaul 65% - 26%. However, even younger Americans, being courted by the administration, favor the plan by only a narrow 50% favor - 44% oppose. The President's plan falls short, 49% oppose - 43% favor, even in the Southern states, a Bush stronghold.
Deal Breakers: Reduced Benefits and Near-Term Price Tag
One deal-breaker for the public continues to be the reduced guaranteed Social Security benefit upon retirement. Half the public, 51%, oppose giving up some of the guaranteed benefits in exchange for investment accounts, unchanged from January. Only 42% support the President's plan if it means giving up guaranteed benefits.
The biggest hurdle Bush faces is the likely near-term cost of funding personal savings accounts, with a price tag of $2 trillion dollars to be paid back later, over time. When confronted with the program's near-term cost, Americans oppose the Bush plan by a lopsided 67%-24%, again little changed from January.
Another hurdle the President faces is trust. Americans also trust the Democrats more than the Republicans to protect Social Security, 45% - 35%.
Bush Democracy Building A Low Priority
Less than half of Americans, 46%, give Bush and the invasion of Iraq credit for recent democratic trends in the Middle East, including the recent Iraqi election. Another 38% say these steps toward democracy result more from other events, with 11% undecided.
- Americans remain evenly divided, 47% - 47%, on whether the Iraq war was right or wrong. However, war support is up 5 percentage points since mid-January, before the Iraqi elections.
A key reason that Bush's thrust for democracy abroad is not buoying his overall job approval is that only few Americans, just 9%, consider building democracy abroad a critical priority for the President's second term, while only another 26% consider it "very important."
- Highest priorities are: homeland security (38% "extremely critical"), the Iraq war (37%), the economy (37%), education (35%), and cutting the deficit (30%).
Methodology
This Time Magazine poll was conducted by telephone March 15-17, 2005 among a random sample of 1,010 adults, age 18 and older throughout America.
The margin of error for the entire sample is approximately +/-3 percentage points. The margin of error is higher for subgroups. Surveys are subject to other error sources as well, including sampling coverage error, recording error, and respondent error.
Schulman, Ronca, & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs designed the survey and conducted all interviewing. The full Time questionnaire and trend data may be found in the related links below.
Related Links
