The floor appears to be dropping out for Bush's SS plan. Over in the recs we have a link the WSJ take down of the Bush plan.
Teixeria has the goods on three new polls that show Bush's SotU speech did virtually nothing to shift the climate.
Three new polls provide more evidence of just how difficult the public opinion climate is for Bush. The first is a Westhill Partners poll released by The Hotline this week. Among the key findings are the following...
- By 54-42 (61-33 among independents), voters say they would not be likely to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market if they were allowed to do so.
- By 50-33 (53-25 among independents), voters say they "disapprove of proposals to incorporate personal accounts into the Social Security program". (Interestingly, despite the Republicans' now-religious belief that saying "personal accounts" rather than "private accounts" somehow makes these accounts much more attractive, the half-sample that was asked this same question with private accounts substituted for personal accounts actually had a slightly less disapproving reaction.)
People just don't get the point of this, and rightly so. I don't get it either. And they'll understand it even less when they learn this will add nothing toward making SS solvent.
The second poll showing tough sledding for Bush on Social Security was conducted by Roper Public Affairs for AARP, Rock the Vote and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The poll is particularly useful for showing how soft support for private accounts is among younger adults (18-39). When supporters of private accounts (based on a question that simply describes the accounts and mentions none of the associated costs and tradeoffs) were asked a series of followups, here is what the poll found...
- Sixty-one percent of the public (53 percent of younger adults) oppose such accounts if stock market fluctuations could result in decreased money in retirement.
- Sixty-three percent of the public (57 percent of younger adults) oppose such accounts if they mean a lower guaranteed benefit in retirement.
- Sixty-eight percent of the public (63 percent of younger adults) oppose such accounts mean massive new federal debt in order to pay current benefits.
So the target audience of this proposal aren't exactly tempermentally predisposed to the program. But it gets worse.
The final poll with bad news for the Bush plan is the new Newsweek poll, conducted entirely after Bush's SOTU address. Here are some of the key findings:
- Just 12 percent of the public would support cutting Social Security benefits to retirees to keep Social Security financially solvent.
- In a completely unaided question, that simply refers to "the changes to Social Security proposed by the President", 36 percent say they oppose these changes, compared to 26 percent who favor them.
- By 44-40, the public doesn't think allowing one-third of the Social Security payroll tax to be diverted into individual savings accounts will result in a better deal for retirees than the current system.
Ouch. Of course, it may take some time for the GOP noise machine to work its magic, but my sense is that the people just aren't going to bite on this one. Teixeria sums it up himself best:
No doubt about it, Bush has quite a sales job on his hands. Unfortunately for him, the more details of his plan that come out, the more the public seems likely to be reminded of what they don't like about it. In other words, as the data above show, his plan is only popular on the level of vague generality--anything specific and the public starts bailing out. That's a tough dynamic for a president to overcome.