Iraq, The Economy, Amnesty, CEOs & Gas Prices

Yesterday, a new Los Angeles Times / Bloomberg Poll was released covering a wide range of topics. The poll contacted 1183 adults by telephone from June 7 through June 10, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

The poll shows that Bush is truly a lame-duck president, and is losing support for most of his policies across the board. Let's examine some of these policies.

IRAQ WAR

Bush has been adamant about not withdrawing any troops from Iraq until we "win" the war. He has been especially adamant about not setting any timetables for withdrawal, saying this would amount to surrender. The poll shows the American people do not agree with him. Here are the results when people were asked do you support or oppose setting timetables for withdrawal:

GROUP..........SUP..........OPP
All..................57%..........39%
Dem...............82%..........14%
Ind.................60%..........36%
Rep................24%..........73%
Men...............55%...........42%
Women..........59%..........36%

Around 57% of the American people support the setting of timelines for withdrawal of American troops. The only group opposed to this are Republicans, and a quarter of them favor timelines for withdrawal. Perhaps even more telling is the fact that a full 25% of Americans now support withdrawing the troops immediately.

ECONOMY

Bush has not hidden the fact that he thinks the way to a healthy economy is to give corporations everything they want, regardless of how this affects the common man. He has even let corporate lobbyists write many of his economic bills. Once again, the majority of Americans disapprove. Here are the results when they were asked do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy.

GROUP..........APP..........DIS
All..................38%..........58%
Dem...............14%...........83%
Ind.................28%..........66%
Rep................77%...........19%
Men...............43%...........54%
Women.........33%............61%
<40k.............32%............65%
>100K...........45%.............52%

The interesting part of this question is that both those making less than $40,000 and those making more than $100,000 show a majority opposed to Bush's policies. Corporate CEOs fare even worse in this poll. Americans across the board believe they make far too much, and a full 61% believe corporate CEOs are not ethical. Here are the figures when Americans were asked do you think CEOs make too much (TM) or right amount (RA).

GROUP..........TM..........RA
All..................81%.........14%
Dem...............88%........07%
Ind.................86%........09%
Rep................73%.........23%
Men...............80%.........16%
Women..........82%.........12%
<40k..............76%.........18%
>100K............80%.........20%

Even a whopping 73% of Republicans believe that corporate salaries for top executives are way out of line. The people would like to see these salaries reined in. Too bad there are no politicians with the will to get the job done.

AMNESTY FOR IMMIGRANTS

Listening to the screams of the right-wing hate-mongers, one might conclude there is a vast anti-immigrant backlash in this country, but this is just not true. It turns out that the right-wing claim that Americans are opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants is simply a lie. Most Americans are better than that. Not a single group (even Republicans and conservatives) opposed an amnesty path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in this country. Here are the numbers.

GROUP..........SUP..........OPP
All..................63%..........23%
Lib.................69%..........14%
Mod...............65%..........24%
Con................58%..........27%
Dem...............66%..........19%
Ind.................66%..........20%
Rep................65%..........27%
Men...............64%..........26%
Women..........62%..........20%

GAS PRICES

The giant oil companies have been running a public relations campaign to convince Americans that they are being forced to raise gas prices to outrageous levels because of the market forces of supply and demand. I have been wondering if Americans are buying into that big lie. Turns out they don't believe it at all. The last question we'll examine is who do you blame for the high gas prices -- US oil companies (USO), Bush administration (BA), supply and demand of the market (S&D), foreign oil exporters (FOE) or environmental regulations (ER).

GROUP....USO....BA....S&D....FOE....ER
All............38%....21%...12%.....10%....05%
Dem.........33%....36%...07%....09%....00%
Ind...........45%....19%....12%....09%....03%
Rep..........39%....07%....19%....11%.....14%
Men.........39%....19%....17%....07%....06%
Women....37%....23%....07%....12%....05%