Polling Shows Americans Wary of Bailouts

(AP)

In polls conducted last fall, both the general principle of providing government assistance to financial institutions and the specific legislation Congress passed last fall met with lukewarm public support.

A CBS News/New York Times poll conducted September 21-24, 2008, in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, found just 42 percent of Americans approved of the government providing money to Wall Street, and more, 46 percent, disapproved. Those sentiments transcended partisanship: just 43 percent of Republicans, 41 percent of Democrats and 4 percent of independents approved. By October, just 36 percent approved of this approach, and 52 percent disapproved.

Views have not changed much since then. In March 2009, a CBS News Poll found 41 percent approved -- and more, 50 percent, disapproved -- of the government providing money to banks and other financial institutions to try to "help fix the country's economic problems."

Why such lukewarm support for these plans, which were presented as helping the U.S. economy avoid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?

One answer could be the blame Americans placed on the banks themselves for the financial troubles they were experiencing. The September 2008 poll found that 46 percent of the public thought that bad management by the banks was to blame for those problems, and just 27 percent thought that a lack of government supervision was to blame. Another 17 percent thought both were at fault. By March, fully 75 percent of Americans felt that the banks' problems were caused by management decisions, and only 17 percent thought they were the result of conditions beyond the banks' control.

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Moreover, many Americans saw Wall Street, and not Main Street, as benefiting from those bailouts. In October 2008, by two to one Americans viewed the bailout as helping those on Wall Street, and not the entire country.

In fact, 53 percent of respondents to a September CBS poll felt that a government bailout of the financial industry would burden American taxpayers and only help the financial institutions that were failing. Only 34 percent agreed that the bailout would stop a collapse of the economy that would cause hardship for average Americans. As recently as last March, 48 percent of Americans said they felt "resentful" that irresponsible bankers could benefit from the Administration's policies towards financial institutions. Forty percent said they were "relieved" by those policies.

Compensation at financial institutions has been a troubling issue for many Americans as well. Americans' frustrations were evident last March, just after the announcement that insurance company AIG paid bonuses to its employees – 83 percent of Americans thought AIG should not have paid bonuses, and 77 percent wanted the government to try to recover that money. Fifty percent described themselves as angry about the issue.

(CBS)

One outcome of the events of last fall and their aftermath: just over seven in ten Americans told CBS News in April that they think the government should increase regulations on the financial industry to prevent such crises from occurring again.

An Associated Press/Gfk Poll released today shows a similar percentage thinking the government has not done enough to prevent another major crisis.

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