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.

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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.

Most Americans--53%--also oppose a plan for the federal government to pay off a portion of the mortgages only for people who can’t afford their current payments. Thirty-two percent (32%) think it’s a good idea. Support for that plan is even lower among homeowners.

Once again, there is a wide partisan divide. Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans and 58% of unaffiliated adults oppose the plan to help at-risk homeowners pay their mortgages. But a plurality of Democrats (49%) favor the plan.

There is also little support for a plan that directly subsidizes all homeowners. Just 33% of all adults support having the federal government to pay up to $100,000 of the mortgage balance owned by every single homeowner in America. Fifty-one percent (51%) reject such a plan. Even though they would directly benefit, a majority of homeowners (52%) don’t like that plan.

Last week, 45% of Americans opposed the federal government subsidizing mortgage payments for financially troubled homeowners.

Most Americans believe the housing market will improve only when the overall U.S. economy gets better.

In December, 59% said they expected the value of their home to rise over the next five years, but adults were much less optimistic about the housing market over the next couple years.

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