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WASHINGTON, March 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Americans think
President George W. Bush does not share the priorities of most of the country on
either domestic or foreign issues, a New York Times/CBSNews poll published on
Thursday showed.
Four months after Bush won a solid
re-election over Senator John Kerry, 63 percent of respondents say the president
has different priorities on domestic issues than most Americans. Asked to choose
among five domestic issues facing the country, respondents rated Social Security
third, behind jobs and health care.
On Social Security, 51 percent said permitting
individuals to invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts,
the centerpiece of Bush's plan, was a bad idea. And 45 percent said Bush's
private account plan would actually weaken the economic underpinnings of the
nation's retirement system.
Also, 58 percent of respondents said the White House
did not share the foreign affairs priorities of most Americans.
The poll was the first conducted by The Times and CBS
News since Bush's inauguration. In an apparent reflection of the success of the
Iraq elections, 53 percent of those surveyed said that efforts to bring order to
Iraq were going very or somewhat well, up from 41 percent a month ago. That is
the highest rating on that score since the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Bush's approval rating remains unchanged, at 49
percent, from amonth ago, suggesting that the disagreement with Bush's ideas has
yet to take a toll on America's view of him.
The poll was conducted by telephone with 1,111 adults
from Thursday through Monday. It has a margin of sampling error of plusor minus
three percentage points. Enditem
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