Subsidizing bad behavior?

Rasmussen Reports:

Fifty-five percent (55%) of American adults say the federal government would be rewarding bad behavior by providing mortgage subsidies to financially troubled homeowners. Among investors, 65% hold that view.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that, among all adults, just 32% disagree.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 60% of those not affiliated with either major political party believe the mortgage help subsidizes bad behavior. Most Democrats (51%) disagree.

President Obama last Wednesday announced a $275-billion taxpayer-backed plan that would help as many as nine million Americans avoid foreclosure through measures including subsidized mortgage payments. Critics of the plan, including a widely circulated on-air challenge by CNBC editor Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, say it subsidizes “losers” and “bad behavior” by homeowners who bought houses they knew they could not afford.

The Rasmussen Investor Index, which measures daily confidence, fell to a record low today.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans are not willing to pay higher taxes to help people who cannot afford to make their mortgage payments. Fourteen percent (14%) say higher taxes for this purpose are okay with them. Ten percent (10%) are undecided.

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The survey shows general disagreement with the Obama plan. A poll by the liberal CBS-NY Times pollsters managed to find 61 percent support for the plan.

While Americans support the notion the government providing financial help to struggling homeowners, many are resentful of beneficiaries they deem “irresponsible,” a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

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But while 35 percent say Mr. Obama’s plan makes them feel relieved for people facing foreclosure, just as many are resent (sic) the beneficiaries of the program for needing to be rescued following what respondents see as irresponsible behavior.

Support for government aide to banks and financial institutions, meanwhile, continues to fall. Fifty percent of those surveyed now say they disapprove of the government giving money to those entities, while 39 percent approve. In December, more Americans approved (46 percent) than disapproved (44 percent).

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The first question that comes to mind is whether they were polling the same country. Was the latter poll taken in France?

The survey on the banking bailout should be a warning for the Obama administration, that voter resistance will probably build in the other areas as opponents become more vocal.