(How will this translate into policy is the big question. MG)
http://www.nytimes.
April 4, 2008
81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track
By DAVID LEONHARDT and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at
any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about
the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed "things
have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," up from 69
percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of
the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last
few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There
is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant
problems.
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group -
Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and
rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high
school - say the United States is headed in the wrong direction.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off
than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.
The dissatisfaction is especially striking because public opinion
usually hits its low point only in the months and years after an
economic downturn, not at the beginning of one. Today, however,
Americans report being deeply worried about the country even though
many say their own personal finances are still in fairly good
shape.
Only 21 percent of respondents said the overall economy was in good
condition, the lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession
that began in the summer of 1990 had already been over for more than
a year. In the latest poll, two in three people said they believed
the economy was in recession today.
The unhappiness presents clear risks for Republicans in this year's
elections, given the continued unpopularity of President Bush.
Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the job he
was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer. But
Democrats, who have controlled the House and Senate since last year,
also face the risk that unhappy voters will punish Congressional
incumbents.
Mr. Bush and leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill have moved in
recent weeks to react to the economic slowdown, first by passing a
stimulus bill that will send checks of up to $1,200 to many couples
this spring. They are now negotiating over proposals to overhaul
financial regulations, blunt the effects of a likely wave of home
foreclosures and otherwise respond to the real estate slump and
related crisis on Wall Street.
The poll found that Americans blame government officials for the
crisis more than banks or home buyers and other borrowers. Forty
percent of respondents said regulators were mostly to blame, while 28
percent named lenders and 14 percent named borrowers.
In assessing possible responses to the mortgage crisis, Americans
displayed a populist streak, favoring help for individuals but not
for financial institutions. A clear majority said they did not want
the government to lend a hand to banks, even if the measures would
help limit the depth of a recession.
"What I learned from economics is that the market is not always going
to be a happy place," Sandi Heller, who works at the University of
Colorado and is also studying for a master's degree in business
there, said in a follow-up interview. If the government steps in to
help out, said Ms. Heller, 43, it could encourage banks to take more
foolish risks.
"There are a million and one better ways for the government to spend
that money," she said.
Respondents were considerably more open to government help for home
owners at risk of foreclosure. Fifty-three percent said they believed
the government should help those whose interest rates were rising,
while 41 percent said they opposed such a move.
The nationwide telephone survey of 1,368 adults was conducted from
March 28 to April 2. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3
percentage points.
When the presidential campaign began last year, the war in Iraq and
terrorism easily topped Americans' list of concerns. Almost 30
percent of people in a December poll said that one of those issues
was the country's most pressing problem. About half as many named the
economy or jobs.
But the issues have switched places in just a few months' time. In
the latest poll, 17 percent named terrorism or the war, while 37
percent named the economy or the job market. When looking at the
current state of their own finances, Americans remain relatively
sanguine. More than 70 percent said their financial situation was
fairly good or very good, a number that has dropped only modestly
since 2006.
Yet many say they are merely managing to stay in place, rather than
get ahead. This view is consistent with the income statistics of the
past five years, which suggest that median household income has still
not returned to the inflation-adjusted peak it hit in 1999. Since the
Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, there has never
been an extended economic expansion that ended without setting a new
record for household income.
Economists cite a variety of factors for the sluggish income growth,
including technology and globalization, and it clearly seems to have
made Americans anxious about the future. Fewer than half of parents -
46 percent - said they expected their children to enjoy a better
standard of living than they themselves do, down from 56 percent in
2005.
Respondents were more pessimistic when asked in general terms about
the next generation, with only a third saying it would live better
than people do today. (Polls usually find people more upbeat about
their personal situation than about the state of society, but the gap
is now larger than usual.)
Charles Parrish, a 56-year-old retired fireman in Evans, Ga., who now
works a maintenance job for the local school system, said he was
worried the country was not preparing children for the
high-technology economy of the future. Instead, the government passed
a stimulus package that simply sends checks to taxpayers and worsens
the deficit in the process.
"Who's going to pay back the money?" Mr. Parrish, an independent,
said. "We are. They are giving me money, except I'm going to have to
pay interest on it."
Democrats have asserted recently that the lack of wage growth has
made people more open to government intervention in the economy than
in the past, and the poll found mixed results on this score.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would support raising
taxes on households making more than $250,000 to pay for tax cuts or
government programs for people making less than that amount. Only 38
percent called it a bad idea. Both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and
Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidates, have
made proposals along these lines.
More broadly, 43 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer a
larger government that provided more services, which is tied for the
highest such number since The Times and CBS News began asking the
question in 1991. But an identical 43 percent said they wanted a
smaller government that provided fewer services.
And although both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have blamed trade with
other countries for some of the economy's problems, Americans say
they continue to favor trade - if not quite as strongly as in the
past. Fifty-eight percent called it good for the economy; 32 percent
called it bad, up from 17 percent in 1996.
At the same time, 68 percent said they favored trade restrictions to
protect domestic industries, instead of allowing unrestrained trade.
In early 1996, 55 percent favored such restrictions.
Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.
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