pax
ONE love, blood, life
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/28/budget/index.html
(This is a sponsored link, so even if you don't have Salon Premium, you should be able to read it. And you can always read all of Salon's content for free with a "Daypass" if you're willing to watch a little ad first.)
Cynical compassion
Joe Conason
At a White House meeting in November 2002, President Bush asked his staff: "What are we doing on compassion?" The president got no response but silence, recalls former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and he quickly dropped the subject.
Now we are learning the true and profoundly dismaying answer to that question.
What the Bush administration has been "doing on compassion" is to play merciful and bountiful at political photo opportunities while concocting plans for devastating budget cuts and irresponsible tax cuts. As Bush himself warned his advisors at the same meeting, he didn't want to "slam the door in the third quarter of 2004," meaning in the months before Election Day. But behind closed doors and on Capitol Hill, he and his Republican allies are fashioning policies that reserve whatever compassion they can afford for those least in need.
(This is a sponsored link, so even if you don't have Salon Premium, you should be able to read it. And you can always read all of Salon's content for free with a "Daypass" if you're willing to watch a little ad first.)
Cynical compassion
Joe Conason
At a White House meeting in November 2002, President Bush asked his staff: "What are we doing on compassion?" The president got no response but silence, recalls former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and he quickly dropped the subject.
Now we are learning the true and profoundly dismaying answer to that question.
What the Bush administration has been "doing on compassion" is to play merciful and bountiful at political photo opportunities while concocting plans for devastating budget cuts and irresponsible tax cuts. As Bush himself warned his advisors at the same meeting, he didn't want to "slam the door in the third quarter of 2004," meaning in the months before Election Day. But behind closed doors and on Capitol Hill, he and his Republican allies are fashioning policies that reserve whatever compassion they can afford for those least in need.