DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03275.v3
title: CBS News Monthly Poll, February 2001
title: Version 3

description: This poll, conducted February 10-12, 2001, is part of a
continuing series of surveys that solicit public opinion on the
presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. The
survey examined respondents' views about George W. Bush as president,
including whether they approved of Bush's job performance, their
opinions of Bush, whether Bush would be in charge and have control of
his cabinet, the biggest problems facing President Bush and the
Congress, whether Bush would be able to work with both parties to get
things done, and whether Bush would be capable of handling foreign
affairs. A second battery of questions queried the respondents on
their views of Congress, including whether partisanship was still
present in Washington, whether they approved of Congress's job
performance, and whether the current Congress could do a better job
then their predecessors, considering that the Congress was nearly
evenly divided. Respondents were also asked for their opinions on
taxes and the economy. In regard to taxes, respondents were asked if
the budget surplus should be used to cut income taxes, pay down the
national debt, preserve programs like Medicare and Social Security, or
something else, what size income tax cut they would like to see
passed, whether they approved of Bush's 1.6 trillion dollar tax cut
over the next ten years, who they thought would benefit from the tax
cut, how the tax cut would affect Social Security and Medicare, and
what they would do with the extra money if the tax cut passed. With
respect to the economy, respondents were queried about the condition
of the national economy and whether it was getting better or worse,
whether they felt the economy was in a recession, how they viewed the
stock market and the future of the market, if it was a good time to
buy a new car or house, if they were concerned about layoffs in the
future, and whether their spending habits had changed because of
concerns for the economy. Another set of questions dealt with
America's power supplies. Respondents were asked if the electric
companies, state government, or consumers were to blame for the power
shortage in California, whether the federal government should help
California or if it was a state issue, whether producing energy was
more important than protecting the environment, and whether the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska should be opened for oil and
natural gas drilling. Respondents' views were also elicited on the
topics of retirement and marriage. Questions if applicable, probed the
age at which the respondents expected to retire, their main reason for
planning to retire after age 65, whether they thought that the Social
Security system would have enough money to provide their expected
benefits, whether they had begun to establish a separate savings
program for retirement, what type of program it was, at what age they
began this savings program, whether they would accept an early
retirement if given the chance, and whether they expected their
standard of living to be the same after retiring. In regard to
marriage, respondents were asked if most Americans getting married
currently took the institution of marriage as seriously as their
parents' generation did, how long romance lasts during marriage, if
married, what the quality of communication was between them and their
spouses, if they could trust their spouses, and whether they were
satisfied with marriage. Respondents were also asked for their
opinions of former President Bill Clinton, former President George
H.W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Background information on respondents includes age, gender, education,
race/ethnic identity, voter registration, political party affiliation,
political orientation, marital status, number of children in the
household, and household income.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News Monthly Poll, February 2001
description: (1) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR
staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this
collection in essentially the same form in which they were
received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to
Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to
non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to
ensure respondents' anonymity. (2) The codebook is provided by ICPSR
as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was
developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF
reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how
to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web
site.The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.