The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias

09/06/05

Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath have focused public attention as never before (in my memory) on the twin scandals of George W. Bush's proclivity for incompetence laced with dishonesty and the persistence of mass poverty in America. The scandals are not unrelated. When on the campaign trail in 2000 Bush proclaimed himself a 'compassionate conservative' different from his predecessors, nobody quite knew what he meant. The idea seemed to be, however, that he was like a regular conservative, but also cared about poor people. Whether or not that's what the slogan was supposed to have meant, the reality turned out quite differently. Bush has become famous for his casual disregard of the basic elements of conservative philosophy ... Spending has gone up -- way up -- nearly across the board even while tax cuts have been lavished on the wealthy. Less noted is that one very small portion of the federal government's activities really has been curtailed: the spending of money on efforts to help poor people...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10216


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp