If you ever harbored a hope that there was any compassion whatsoever embodied in the weak and inhumane Bush Administration, you may put that hope to rest forever.
As the Washington Post today reports:
President Bush, who embraced AmeriCorps as part of his "compassionate conservative" agenda in 2001, now wants to shut down a part of the national service program that his administration has deemed "ineffective."Beginning next year, the White House would reduce funding for the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps from $27 million to $5 million with the goal of closing it down, according to the president's budget. About 81 full-time staff members would lose their jobs.
That's right. This "compassionate" president will slash the miniscule budget of AmeriCorps by over 80% while pitifully declaiming it as too expensive. Based on 2004 data, a year that there was very little disaster work, Administration officials say that Americorps is wasting its time rebuilding national parks and tutoring underprivileged school children. Of course, in 2005 there was a lot more disaster-related work handled by AmeriCorps, but that's irrelevant.
The fact that in a budget of over $2 Trillion the Bush Administration will cut $22 Million from a program that coordinates the activities of thousands of volunteers is unconscionable, incredible, and profoundly uncompassionate.
"Just a few years ago, there was the president's call to service. People have been responding to it -- and now it's being cut off."
Ultimately, what all this amounts to is the Republican's abject failure to call for the greatest capacity of the American people, but rather to prefer the politics of fear, greed and ignorance.
Only 1 in 3 Americans approve of Mr. Bush's job performance. It's not hard to see why.
By the way, I met Eli, who was one of my uncle's best friends, several years ago. Apparently, Eli had a LOT of "best friends!"
Though I guess this just goes to show how serious they really were about it. Which, as I suspected, turned out to be "not very."