While the war on terrorism continues to supercharge
President Bush's personal and professional ratings, he still faces broad public skepticism on a range of issues — and a growing sense of distance from the public on a more personal level.
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In a new ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, many Americans express dubious views of the president's position on issues including tax cuts and health care, and on corporate influence in his administration.
The number who say Bush understands the problems of average Americans has dropped from 61 percent last January to 51 percent now. And 61 percent now say average people have too little influence in the Bush administration, up from 49 percent last January.
On taxes, a centerpiece of Bush's domestic agenda, the president and the public are clearly out of sync. Americans by a huge margin, 62 percent to 34 percent, say it's more important for the government to provide needed services than to cut taxes. But Bush is widely seen as having the opposite priority: By a 57 percent to 32 percent margin, Americans think it's more important to him to cut taxes than to provide needed services.
Additionally, despite the president's 66 percent job approval rating, six in 10 Americans think large business corporations have too much influence in his administration, and 56 percent think the oil and gas industries specifically have too much clout — a number that's grown by eight points over the last year.
Some of these changes are the inevitable result of Bush's decline from his soaring post-9/11 ratings, when the country rallied around him to an unprecedented level. His job approval rating a year ago was 86 percent, having peaked at 92 percent in October 2001, the highest on record in polls since 1938. |
