"No administration since [Lyndon B. Johnson's] has had a more successful legislative record than this one. From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the 'poor people stuff.' " -- David Kuo, former Special Assistant to George W. Bush and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
More via the Washington Post:
Kuo said [in his beliefnet.com column] it was "a dream come true for me" when Bush promised in 2000 that in his first year in office he would provide $6 billion in tax incentives for private charitable giving, $1.7 billion for groups that care for the poor and $200 million for a Compassion Capital Fund to assist local faith-based organizations.(emphasis added)
"Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact," he wrote.
In June 2001, the promised tax incentives were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation "to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy," Kuo said. The Compassion Capital Fund has received a cumulative total of $100 million in the past four years, and new programs for children of prisoners, at-risk youth and prisoners reentering society have received a little more than $500 million over four years, he said.
"Unfortunately, sometimes even the grandly-announced 'new' programs aren't what they appear," Kuo wrote, citing as an example the three-year $150 million "gang prevention" effort Bush announced in this year's State of the Union address. In reality, Kuo said, that money is being taken out of the "already meager" $100 million request for the Compassion Capital Fund.
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