PROMISES UNFULFILLED

PROMISES UNFULFILLED
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: As George W. Bush campaigned his way to the White House, he promised an intriguing alternative to state-run welfare. Forget big government, he said. If we really want to help the poor, we must enlist all sorts of community groups to spend federal antipoverty dollars. The concept was called "compassionate conservatism," and it struck a chord with voters. But in two years, President Bush has done little to put the theory into practice. America's poor, it can fairly be said, are suffering more today than when Bush first came to Washington.
Perhaps it can't be helped, for who could have foretold the disaster of Sept. 11, 2001? That crisis and its aftermath have sopped up much of Washington's spare cash and attention. Even so, it's worth noting when presidential pledges go unfulfilled. As The Washington Post reported Thursday, Bush so far has accomplished few items on his list for helping the poor -- and hasn't even tried to make a case for many of them. While he's won backing for tax cuts, defense spending and a generous homeland-security budget, he has let the "compassion agenda" sit stone cold on the back burner of his administration's stove.
'Compassion Capital Fund'
Take Bush's plan to boost community access to antipoverty funds, for starters. He said he wanted a 10-year, $90 billion "Compassion Capital Fund" that would help religious and other nonprofit groups tap tax money for good ends. But he failed to push the idea with vigor. Congress reacted to the plan as it might to a platter of slugs on toast. The House cut Bush's fund to $6 billion; the Senate never passed it.
So what about volunteerism -- which Bush has said should be the core of the antipoverty quest? Thus far, his argument hasn't won many congressional hearts. Bush responded by scrapping his plan to boost volunteer enlistment through tax credits and scholarships. He's also dallied shamefully in pushing to expand AmeriCorps and other national-service programs -- thereby squandering the chance to channel the surge of patriotism loosed by Sept. 11.
So if the president's structural reforms are kaput, what's left? There are the half-dozen changes he pledged to pursue after winning the White House -- reforms like promoting retirement accounts for Ordinary Joes, encouraging homeownership and investing in education. That list also included plans for refundable health-care tax credits, new prescription-drug benefits for the elderly and enhanced support for religious charities.
Many of those ideas are more or less sensible. But two years on, only one of them -- the big education bill -- is actually a reality. And that plan, which could be the saving of strapped local school districts, is now the focus of a nasty budget squabble.