As I think of the promises candidates will make in the coming months. I think back to the 2000 election and George Bush's eloquent position of "Compassionate Conservatism." I was dissappointed we had lost the election. But I thought compassionate conservatism would be "compassionate" after all. Many of the Democratic Policies are based, I believe, on being compassionate, so if we lost, this was really a good man to lose to.
I think everyone who is a democrat, and I hope many Republicans, realize that what has happened on the "compassionate" front was far from compassionate. One of the very first acts as President involved eliminating money for foreign birth control. Cited as a stoppage for US tax payer funded abortions, this act also included all foreign reproductive funding eliminating birth control, counseling and other services to the country.
"No Child Left Behind" seemed like a compassionate act. Again, I thought, THIS must be compassionate conservatism. But as it is well known, this act is underfunded. So what I thought was "compassionate," now turns out to be not. It would be horrible to think he had this in mind all along. THAT would NOT be "compassionate."
As far as I am aware, George Bush has not taken away any of President Clinton's edicts regarding conserving land for prosperity. That's not UN-compassionate. I know he wants to drill for oil in ANWAR a protected area of Alaska. He says it can be done in an environmentally friendly fashion. Dick Chaney says it can be done in an environmentally sensitive manner as well ( I wouldn't be suprised if Halliburton were given the job). The thing is, Bush's record even by this time is already suspect of lacking "compassion." I've heard no experts weigh in on the subject, just environmentalists and republicans. Maybe Alaska can be drilled without harming the surrounding area. But, no objective source will give me that information. All I know is, so far, I can't trust George Bush and Dick Chaney.
Now Reagan was a compassionate conservative. He was nice to everyone he met and often fed them jelly beans. He made many people feel good about themselves and about their country. Except for poor people or people who were mentally ill. Maybe the mentally ill people didn't think they were unhappy. We were unhappy because they were now in the streets. The poor people knew they were unhappy. I suspect the rich people were very happy! Federal income tax dropped from about 29 percent to 17 percent. The idea was that with all this new money, rich people would invest in the economy causing a "trickle down." Some probably did, but I imagine the very rich, who got most of the money, much like George Bush's tax cuts, were already fully invested They already had virtually unlimited resources anyway. So. . . what to do, what to do, with all this money, maybe I'll put it in the bank with all the rest of my money. Now to be fair, I've heard that that money was working for people in the form of interest. But apparently, it wasn't enough because the poor people were still unhappy. Almost, but generally, not very "compassionate."
So I wonder, Does "Compassionate Conservatism" exist? It sounds really good. It's just that I've never seen it in practice.