Much of the poll-related news coverage right now focuses on President Bush's job approval rating. Most polls show his rating at about 70%, and news stories imply that this relatively robust rating is a result of the positive news coming back from the Iraqi war front. A story on Newsweek's Web site, for example, reads, "A NEWSWEEK poll shows the president's approval rating soaring on the news of military victories in Iraq."
There are a couple of important points worth making here. First, it's not at all clear just how much of the president's high job approval rating is directly due to the "news of military victories." Our Gallup polling showed a predictable increase in Bush's job approval rating as the country went to war (around March 19), but not much change since that point. In fact, Newsweek's own current measure, 71%, is just a little higher than the 68% they measured in their March 27-28 poll, well before the historic scenes of victory as the statues of Saddam Hussein were toppled in Baghdad.
Similarly, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has Bush approval at 71%, up only marginally from the 66% measured in their poll of two weeks before.
The endgame of this war is different from that of the 1991 Gulf War, which had a much clearer finish. Saddam agreed to a negotiated end to fighting, and the U.S. troops came home. Things appear to be winding down at this juncture of the current war, but there are still reports of continued fighting and military activity, and there is lingering doubt about what is going to happen in the weeks and months ahead. Saddam's fate is unknown, and news accounts focus on the possibility of war with Syria or Iran. Most Americans anticipate that American troops will be in Iraq for months, if not years to come.
It's possible that Bush's job approval rating will jump even higher if, and when, there is a clear and definitive sense that the war is over. But Bush is running at about a 10-point deficit compared to his father's job approval rating during the first Persian Gulf War, and I don't anticipate that the current President Bush will come anywhere close to the 89% rating his father received in late February and early March 1991.
My point here: The American public's approval of the job the current president is doing certainly went up as the war began, and the roughly 70% job approval ratings he is receiving now are well above the historical average for all presidents. But I don't think the public has yet interpreted the developments in Iraq as an overwhelming win for the United States, and it doesn't appear that this war will have the same salutary effect on Bush's approval ratings that the first Persian Gulf War had for his father.
The Economy
Discussion of presidential approval and the conflict in Iraq leads us to the topic of what is going to happen in the weeks ahead as the focus shifts away from the war. Predictably, attention is now turning to domestic issues. The Washington Post on Monday carried a major story headlined: "Bush's Hardest Battle May Be Over Agenda at Home."
We're already seeing the public beginning to shift its attention away from the war. The economy has returned front and center as the major problem facing the country. In fact, about half of Americans interviewed this past week in our latest Gallup Poll mentioned some aspect of the economy when asked to name the nation's No. 1 concern. That's as high a percentage mentioning the economy as we have seen since May 1996.
The percentage mentioning war, national security, terrorism or other international concerns has dropped substantially.
This is an entirely predictable pattern. We saw it in 1991. As the focus on the war with Iraq diminished after the allied victory in late February of that year, the economy quickly began to dominate Gallup's most important problem responses, to an even greater extent than it does now.
This time around, we're detecting some faintly good news in our measures of the public's perception of the economy. There is some evidence that Americans may be holding on to a more positive view of where the economy is going in the weeks ahead -- a vital and necessary component of any economic recovery or boom.
I'm particularly interested in responses to our question that asks Americans whether the economy is getting better or getting worse. This question is a very sensitive indicator of consumer mood that often gives us a good early warning of more substantial shifts to come.
The perception that the U.S. economy is getting worse peaked at 67% in early March, which was as dismal a rating on this measure as we had seen since just before Sept. 11, 2001. The percentage of Americans saying the economy was getting worse fell by 20 points just after the war began on March 19, and then started to increase during the second week of the war. It is now back down to 51%, a solid 16 points lower than when the war started. Thirty-six percent of Americans say the economy is getting better, also up significantly from the early March readings.
These aren't spectacularly positive numbers by any means, but the trend is in the right direction. Plus, the fact that we've seen the uptick sustained across three weeks of polling is significant.
The public's rating of Bush's handling of the economy is well below his overall approval rating, but Americans have more confidence in Bush right now than they do in Alan Greenspan or the leaders of either party in Congress when it comes to making the right moves on the economy. (Even so, only 35% of the public has a "great deal" of confidence in Bush to address the problems of the economy, hardly a stirring vote of support.)
Taxes
Today is tax day. Americans are less negative about their taxes now than they have been in quite some time. Only 50% say the amount of federal income tax they have to pay is "too high," very similar to the 47% who said their taxes were too high in a January 2003 poll. These are the lowest such numbers we've recorded since 1962. In 2001, by way of example, 65% of Americans said that the amount they paid in taxes was too high.
Sixty-four percent of Americans say the income tax that they will have to pay this year is "fair." We didn't ask this fairness question between 1946 and 1997, but the current 64% is more reminiscent of the high fairness ratings that Gallup measured during World War II than the ones we've been measuring in recent years. Last year, the fairness number was 58%, and the year before it was 51%.
In some ways, this change in attitude works against Bush. If Americans don't mind paying taxes as much, then they probably aren't as excited about cutting them. New polling out this weekend confirms the degree to which the public is willing to forgo new tax cuts. An Associated Press poll gave respondents a choice between passing more tax cuts to give people money to stimulate the economy, versus holding off on additional tax cuts to avoid making deficits worse and help pay for the war. Given these two choices, the public comes down in favor of the latter, by about a 2-to-1 margin. In other words, there is no strong public sentiment behind the Bush administration's effort to pass more tax cuts.
Our latest Gallup polling also shows that Americans now view their local property taxes -- not their federal income taxes -- as the least fair tax that they pay. In 1994, when Gallup last asked Americans this question, the two were essentially tied as least fair.
The average American feels that a little more than a third of Americans cheat on their income taxes. Only 1% of Americans say that no Americans cheat. Eleven percent say that three-quarters or more cheat.
Thirty-four percent of Americans will file their taxes electronically this year, up from 15% in 1997.