The Harris Poll^® #92, December 21

National Parks, Crime-Fighting, Medicare and Social Security Top the List of Government Services Which Have Strongest Public Support

Foreign aid and immigration service have least support

When asked in a new Harris Poll how strongly they support 14 different government services, five services receive strong, or a fair amount of support, from about three-fourths of all adults or more. The five most popular services are The National Parks Service (85% support), Crime-fighting and prevention services (77%) Medicare (76%), Social Security (76%), and Unemployment benefits (74%).

Other services which are supported by 65 percent or more of all adults are Defense (71%), Medicaid (71%), Federal aid to public schools (69%) and Federal government emergency services (65%).

Three other services are supported by majorities of under 65 percent, Homeland Security (62%), Intelligence Services (61%), and food stamps (59%).

Only two services on the list do not receive majority support, Immigration and Naturalization services (47%) and Foreign aid (40%).

These are the results of a nationwide survey of 1,718 adults surveyed online between November 15 and 22, 2005 by Harris Interactive^®.

Differences in Levels of Support among Republicans, Democrats and Independents

For some of these services there is little difference in the levels of support among Republicans, Democrats and Independents. This is true of the National Park Service, Medicare, Social Security, Crime-fighting and Prevention, Immigration and Naturalization, and Foreign aid.

There are however several services which receive more support from Democrats than Republicans, such as unemployment benefits (81% vs. 69%), federal aid to public schools (78% vs. 67%), and food stamps (71% vs. 45%).

There are also two services which receive substantially more support from Republicans than from Democrats, defense (93% vs. 61%) and homeland security (82% vs. 60%).

Measuring Their Performance

Support for a service does not necessarily mean that it gets high ratings for its performance. In an earlier survey conducted online among 1,833 adults by Harris Interactive between October 11 and 17, 2005, far fewer people gave most services high ratings. For example:

Medicaid which enjoys the support of 71 percent of all adults is rated 73 percent negative, 27 percent positive.

Federal aid to public schools which is supported by 69 percent of adults is rated 74 percent negative, 26 percent positive.

Social Security, which enjoys very strong support (76%) is rated 73 percent negative, 27 percent negative.

Medicare, also a very popular service (76% support) is rated 73 percent negative, 27 percent positive.

All of the nine services rated in October (the list did not include five of the services included in the November survey), received more negative than positive ratings. Those which had the most positive ratings by the public are: defense (45% positive), foreign aid (44%), and food stamps (33%).

Some of these ratings are somewhat surprising. For example, the relatively high ratings for foreign aid, the service which has the lowest level of support; and emergency services which is rated more favorably than four other popular services in spite of the widely reported failures of the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

TABLE 1

Support for 14 Government Services

Q.: "For each of the following government services, please indicate how strongly you support the policy or service"

Base: All Adults

		NET
		Great Deal/ Fair Amount	Not Very Much/Not at all	Great Deal	Fair Amount	Not Very Much	Not at All
National Park Service	%	85	15	40	45	12	3
Crime-fighting and prevention services	%	77	23	40	37	17	6
Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled	%	76	24	47	29	16	8
Social Security	%	76	24	44	32	17	7
Unemployment benefits	%	74	26	32	42	20	6
Defense	%	71	29	37	34	18	11
Medicaid, the health insurance program for people with very low incomes	%	71	29	36	35	18	11
Federal aid to public schools	%	69	31	37	33	22	9
Federal government emergency services	%	65	35	28	38	24	11
Homeland Security	%	62	38	27	35	25	13
Intelligence Services	%	61	39	24	37	28	12
Food stamps	%	59	41	21	37	26	16
Immigration and Naturalization services	%	47	53	15	32	33	20
Foreign Aid	%	40	60	8	32	36	24

Note: Net percentages may not add up exactly due to rounding.

TABLE 2

Support for 14 Government Services by Party

Q.: "For each of the following government services, please indicate how strongly you support the policy or service"

Summary of "a great deal/a fair amount"

Base: All Adults

		Party ID
	Total	Republican	Democrat	Independent
	%	%	%	%
National Park Service	85	83	88	84
Crime-fighting and prevention	77	80	81	73
Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled	76	80	78	72
Social Security	76	75	78	74
Unemployment benefits	74	69	81	71
Defense	71	93	61	64
Medicaid, the health insurance program for people with very low incomes	71	66	77	70
Federal aid to public schools	69	67	78	64
Federal government emergency services	65	72	65	58
Homeland security	62	82	60	49
Intelligence services	61	75	56	55
Food stamps	59	45	71	58
Immigration and Naturalization services	47	48	51	43
Foreign aid	40	39	42	38

TABLE 3

Rating the Performance of Nine Government Services

Q: "How would you rate each of the following government programs and services?"

October 2005 results

Base: All Adults

		Excellent	Pretty Good	Only Fair	Poor	Positive		Negative
National Defense	%	10	35	34	21	45	55
Foreign aid	%	10	34	37	20	44		56
Food stamps	%	2	31	44	23	33		67
Unemployment benefits	%	2	30	44	23	32		68
Emergency services	%	4	28	38	29	32		68
Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled	%	2	25	39	34	27		73
Social Security	%	3	24	40	34	27		73
Federal aid to public schools	%	3	23	40	34	26		74
Medicaid, the health insurance program for people with very low incomes	%	2	24	42	33	26		74

Note: Five of the services included in Table 1 were not included in this question asked in October, so there are no Oct. ratings for the National Parks Service, Crime-fighting and Prevention, Homeland Security, Intelligence Services or Immigration and Naturalization services.

Methodology

One Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between November 15 and 22, 2005 among 1,718 U.S. adults (aged 18 and over). The other Harris Poll® was conducted online between October 11 and 17, 2005 with a nationwide sample of 1,833 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the overall results have a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire U.S. adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Sampling error for sub-samples is higher and varies. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (nonresponse), question wording and question order, and weighting. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online sample was not a probability sample.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

J 25890A and 25586

Q 626 and 651