W. House Launching Soc. Sec. Blitz

The White House is preparing a nationwide campaign to sell President Bush's proposed Social Security overhaul to the American people, as a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows support for the plan lagging.

Treasury Secretary John Snow said the administration was launching a "60-day, 60-stop blitz" of the country to raise the profile of Mr. Bush's signature second-term domestic issue. He said he, the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials will be in 29 states over the next two months.

The president has already invested considerable time and political capital traveling the country to promote the issue in the first months of his new term. He plans visits to New Jersey and Indiana on Friday.

What has the White House worried is that the public does not appear to be responding to the president's arguments for revamping Social Security, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller. Not only that, even Republican members of Congress are telling the White House they're hearing concerns about the president's approach from their constituents.

On Wednesday, Sen. Charles Grassley, the influential Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee, suggested shifting the focus of the debate from Mr. Bush's divisive proposal for personal accounts to the long-term solvency of the retirement program.

"Maybe we ought to focus on the solvency and bring people to the table just over what do you do for the solvency for the next 75 years," Grassley, R-Iowa, said.

Grassley said "personal accounts don't have a lot to do with solvency," a distinction that Mr. Bush glosses over but that his advisers concede.

Mr. Bush did get a much-needed boost Wednesday from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who prodded Congress to move on making changes to Social Security and Medicaid "sooner rather than later."

The president has set a deadline of year's end but Republican leaders aren't sure they can get it done.

"In terms of whether it'll be a week, a month, six months, or a year as to when we bring something to the floor, it's just too early," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

The CBS/Times poll finds that while Americans agree with the president that the nation's retirement system is in trouble, just 16 percent share his view that it is facing a crisis. Support for his proposal to create private investment accounts has fallen to a new low (43 percent), while a majority (51 percent) now calls it a bad idea.

ALLOWING PEOPLE TO INVEST THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY TAXES IS:

Now
Good idea
43%
Bad idea
51%

1/2005
Good idea
45%
Bad idea
50%

1/2002
Good idea
54%
Bad idea
39%

6/2001
Good idea
48%
Bad idea
46%

Support for Mr. Bush's privatization plan shrinks even lower, to 22 percent, when people are told it could mean a cut in their guaranteed retirement benefits.

And just 17 percent of Americans say they would support private accounts if it would lead to an increase in the federal budget deficit.

Further, there's widespread skepticism that privatization would do anything to bolster Social Security's overall financial health. Just 19 percent think it would, while 45 percent think it would make things worse.

Overall, the public has serious misgivings about Mr. Bush's approach to Social Security. Less than one-third (31 percent) say they're confident he will make the right decisions on the issue, while 63 percent are uneasy.

Opinions about the president's plan split sharply along party lines. More than six in 10 Republicans are confident in Mr. Bush's handling of Social Security, while 85 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Independents are uneasy.

Wealthier Americans, those with household incomes of $75,000 or more, are the most likely to support the president's plan. But even in that income group, a majority (57 percent) still says they're uneasy. That uneasiness extends to Americans in all age groups.

CONFIDENT BUSH WILL MAKE RIGHT DECISION ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY

All
Confident
31%
Uneasy
63%

Rep.
Confident
63%
Uneasy
31%

Dem.
Confident
12%
Uneasy
85%

Ind.
Confident
24%
Uneasy
68%

<$50K
Confident
27%
Uneasy
67%

<$75K
Confident
43%
Uneasy
57%

The poll finds that Americans favor alternative approaches to Social Security reform over Mr. Bush's privatization plan. The most popular alternative is raising the $90,000 cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, followed by raising the percentage of income withheld.

Doubts about Mr. Bush's Social Security plan reflect a broader questioning of his domestic priorities. Just 31 percent say the Bush administration shares Americans' domestic priorities, while 63 percent say it does not.

Americans rate Social Security third on a list of top domestic concerns, behind jobs and the economy and health care.

This poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 1111 adults interviewed by telephone February 24-28, 2004. The error due to sampling could be plus or minus three percentage points for results based on all adults. Error for subgroups is higher.