JONATHAN COHN MARCH 31, 2011
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
House Republicans want to cut funding for health programs abroad and for community clinics here at home. And although the projected savings are small, at least relative to the size of the federal budget, the philosophical shift they signal is big. This is the end of compassionate conservatism.
You remember compassionate conservatism, don't you? It was George W. Bush’s slogan, going back to the late 1990s, when, as a candidate, he told audiences that “Prosperity without purpose is just materialism” and vowed to “rally the armies of compassion in our communities to fight a very different war against poverty.”
Cynics saw it as empty rhetoric or, worse, a deliberate distraction from policies that were actually quite harsh to the nation’s least fortunate. The cynics had a pretty good point. Bush raided the treasury, in order to give wealthy people huge tax cuts, and the resulting budget crunch has forced all sorts of cuts to vital programs over the years.
Still, Bush never gave up the rhetoric of compassion. And on at least a few occasions he lived up to it. Community clinics were one example: As president, he doubled their funding. According to an account by Kevin Sack in the New York Times, that led to the creation or expansion of more than 1,200 clinics around the country. “This is a really good use of the taxpayers’ money,” Bush said at the time, noting that good primary care helps keep people out of the emergency room.
Bush’s commitment to global health was even stronger. In 2003, he called for a five-year, $15 billion initiative to fight HIV around the world through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It was a dramatic effort. Previously, the U.S. had spent less than $1 billion a year on HIV abroad. And it yielded dramatic results. According to official PEPFAR statistics, the program had, by the fall of 2008, provided life-sustaining treatment to more than 2.4 million people and allowed more than 200,000 infants to be born HIV-free.
Both the community clinic and global HIV initiatives came with conservative baggage. Bush promoted the former as an alternative to expansions of government-provided health insurance, rather than as a supplement to it, and he insisted the latter promote abstinence. Even so, Bush went out of his way to praise not just these programs but also the moral imperative behind them, frequently invoking religious imagery.
Listen, for example, to what Bush said during a speech about PEPFAR in 2004:
HIV/AIDS, you see, is a challenge, it's a direct challenge to the compassion of our country, and to the welfare of not only our nation, but nations all across the globe. It's really one of the great challenges of our time. This disease leaves suffering and orphans and fear wherever it reaches…
Every day in our world, 8,000 lives are lost to the AIDS pandemic -- 8,000 people a day. … when they get the antiretroviral drug, there's a Lazarus effect -- (applause) -- and people, all of a sudden, say, I have hope. And when others have hope -- when someone has hope, that spreads to other people. …
Around the world, AIDS remains a source of great suffering. It’s important for our fellow countrymen to remember. And we have an obligation to work to relieve the suffering, and we will.
Maybe those words were utterly sincere. Maybe they weren't. But ask yourself this: When was the last time you heard anything remotely like it from a prominent Republican? Even if compassionate conservatism was mostly hype, it said something about Bush, his allies, and their supporters that they thought the hype was worth creating.
Today, by contrast, Republican leaders are perfectly content to walk away from these programs and many others without so much as acknowledging the consequences, let alone addressing them. Poor people in the U.S. might not be able to get basic medical care? Victims of HIV abroad might lose their life-sustaining drugs? If Republicans have paused even a moment to think about these things, they sure haven't shown it.
26 comments
“Prosperity without purpose is just materialism”. GWB. "For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from (good) works is dead." James (Brother of Jesus).
- rayward
March 31, 2011 at 7:47pm
It's not just at the federal level. Note the effort in Maine to roll back child-labor laws.
- acbrod
March 31, 2011 at 10:06pm
Where does this moral coarseness come from? Do they find justification for it in the bibles they pretend to read. It is disheartening. Didn't Jesus say something to the effect that as you do for the least among you...
- paskunac
April 1, 2011 at 9:10am
I won't defend everything being done, but part of the concern is that the federal gov't needs to get out of the business of funding community clinics, and let the states and counties do it. Simply because something is a good idea doesn't mean Washington should fund it. We're a federal republic, after all. A federal republic that is 14 trillion in debt and rising.
- butchie b
April 1, 2011 at 9:50am
Conservatives were never compassionate; they just assumed that claiming to be would help them politically. Now they have dropped the pretense. This newfound brazenness is happening on other issues as well. For example, many prominent right-wingers now admit that they are opposed not only to abortion but to birth control. And they have dropped the charade that they are “pro-life” partly out of concern for the well-being of women. An astounding number of Republican candidates for the Senate in 2010 openly stated their opposition to legal abortion even in cases of rape or to save the lives of pregnant girls and women. We are seeing the cruel, repulsive true face of the conservative extremists who currently control the GOP.
- heppner52
April 1, 2011 at 10:31am
What benefit is there to local funding of clinics? That just makes it harder to achieve and distribute the burden inequitably. No difference other than equity between state and federal taxes.
- roidubouloi
April 1, 2011 at 10:36am
"Distributes the burden inequitably"
- roidubouloi
April 1, 2011 at 10:38am
Class warfare is alive and well! I guess I am too old to fight or I would sign up. At least to post indignant comments at an online forum. Seriously, several years ago, at an online forum (more conservative than this) I suggested that the United States be divided into two countries. One conservative (painting the highways red for easy identification from the air) and the other liberal (with blue highways, natch). At the time, I was mostly joking. Check the color of your nearest highway today. Get ready for ethnic cleansing if you vote the wrong way for your state.
- skahn
April 1, 2011 at 12:07pm
I'm just glad I didn't have to read any indignant posts from the resident Tea Potty/Republican/conservative Trolls trying to once again to justify their lack of compassion.
- GSpinks
April 1, 2011 at 1:47pm
butchie b....the problem with allowing each state to come up with its own solutions is that they....won't. Or, they won't do it in a manner that's fair and equitable to all citizens. I think slavery was the most flagrant example in U.S. history of why that doesn't work. A patchwork of health care laws would lead to very unequal results. Some states just flat-out won't fund them for (supposedly) fiscal reasons and so the sick, dying or disabled people end up back in the fed's lap. "State's rights and responsibilities" is a nice theory on paper but it just ships the risks and costs, much like our current health insurance system, onto others.
- desertdog
April 1, 2011 at 2:05pm
Just a quibble with the premis: when exactly did "compassionate conservatism" actually begin, for it then to end? Or you mean end of CC as an electrocal trope? Because if the latter, it is to be applauded. The whole thing was a fraud to begin with; much better to be upfront with your heartlessness.
- icarusr
April 1, 2011 at 3:32pm
I actually agree with butchie on the federalism issue. I would note two other points. First, on the equity side, in Canada we have block grants to "level", to some extent the playing field. These are massive transfers of wealth, through the federal tax system, from richer parts of the country to the poorer ones. The idea is that there is an absolute minimum of "Canadian services" to be provided across the country by the subfederal governments, and the fact that because of economic vagaries one province is poorer than the rest by a significant margin should not mark the citizens of that province for eternal poverty. Second, I would fully agree with butchie if I were fully convinced that conservatives don't pay just lip service to the federalism concept only when it is good for slashing and burning services to the poor. For example, federal gay marriage ban. Or, in the economic field, agricultural subsidies. Be done with both, and I will be a lot more sympathetic to federalist arguments for screwing the poor, the sick and the helpless.
- icarusr
April 1, 2011 at 3:36pm
Well, I'm not trying to screw anyone, and I believe DOMA to be unwise at best, unconstitutional at worst, as marriage is a state function. I'm happy to end ag subsudies altogether, oh, and ethanol subsidies, too. Desert, some will and some won't to the same extent. But the federal effort is not without its problems as well. Washington cannot do everything, and ought not try. Local health clinics would be such a thing. Besides, why do you blithely assume that a given governor cares less about the poor, etc., than a given President? Again, 14 trillion is the hole and rising.
- butchie b
April 1, 2011 at 3:56pm
Oh give us a break with State's Rights already. What this translates to is misery. Real human beings suffer. Read about cuts to unemployment benefits, health care initiatives, women's health - good heavens - Are people who live in the South less worthy of help than people who live in the North or on the Coasts? Apparently - because - up with the States. So, a worker in Florida who through ZERO fault of his own is jobless will lose the small amount of help he receives. What is supposed to happen to him? Is he just supposed to lie down and die? What about people who can't get affordable medical care? Are they supposed to just suffer and maybe even die? Apparently. Apparently that's the Republican answer to everything. Think I'm exaggerating? Think again. "The Deficit" is being used as an excuse to implement truly brutal policies.
- Sophia
April 1, 2011 at 4:04pm
Oh, for God's sake. And I suppose the Democrat answer is everybody gets everything no matter how much it costs. Gee, my caricature of you makes as much sense as yours of me. Governors have to balance budgets - they don't have a printing press for $$ like in DC. What exactly would you have them do? Should no program be cut - ever - for any reason? Ds seems to have approved the Brezhnev Doctrine when it comes to gov't programs. No $$, once appropriated, can ever be cut, or the Apocalypse will ensue. Yes, you're exaggerating.
- butchie b
April 1, 2011 at 4:58pm
Butchie, I have to say I'm sort of with Sophia on this. There are three ways to attack the bulging deficit: tax rates, employment rates, and expenditures. Your lopsided assault on expenditures isn't convincing anyone.
- GSpinks
April 1, 2011 at 6:30pm
The problem isn't, or shouldn't be, federal vs. state/county provision of services. The problem is not "give everything to everyone." The problem is how to maintain a minimum standard of services across the nation so that growing up in a poorer state or one with a low-service tradition of government does not serious disadvantage the citizen. I'd have no problem with state and local control/management if there was a national minimum that had to be observed. What's not a solution is the "if you don't like it here, move!" proposition that assumes everyone (including children) enjoys maximum mobility at all times. And even that is ultimately a bad idea as we don't want everyone moving to places that have a better system, because they their systems become overburdened (think of the homeless gravitating to San Francisco). Every penny we spend on effective health and education is a penny we don't have to spend on prisons later on down the line.
- ironyroad
April 1, 2011 at 6:33pm
icarus, it would seem the notion began and ended with Bush Jr, although I think it goes back all the way to Reagan as various specious arguments about how/why Retardicans aren't heartless brutes trying to carve out a kingdom from the bodies of lesser people. Compassionate conservatism sounded good, and gave the Republicans the "warm fuzzy" they needed to assuage their consciences. It would seem the Republican Tea Party has eliminated their conscience altogether, and no longer requires the veneer of compassion. As I pointed out to Seattle and Rat, they make so much more sense when they stop trying to pretend that they're not bad people.
- GSpinks
April 1, 2011 at 6:37pm
Are they picking their causes to cut? Let's get rid the "faith based inititiative" and the deduction for charitable donations to religious organizations. We're broke. Can we afford these things now? Let them make taxable profits like everyone else without tax deduction subsidies. Soon the government will tell us what to pray for. Get their hands of my religious organization!
- Nusholtz
April 1, 2011 at 6:51pm
Ironyroad, the double-entendre in your last comment was truly ironic: "Every penny we spend on effective health and education is a penny we don't have to spend on prisons later on down the line." I think I understand what you meant, but it could also mean, "If we waste money on health and education, we won't have money left to keep people in prison." As Scrooge said, "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Butchie B., sorry man, anyone who uses the deficit as an excuse to defend the conservative agenda gets zero points. Do you have any idea how easy it would be to wipe out the deficit with some tax hikes on people who honestly wouldn't even feel it? Conservatives always make the deficit worse. Always. Even when cutting spending, as some earlier posts on this blog have pointed out. The last good thing that happened to the deficit happened under Bill Clinton.
- aaronsama
April 2, 2011 at 12:58am
There's a line in "The Usual Suspects" ... speaking of Keyser Soze, Kevin Spacey says "The greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince every one he didn't exist." I always thought that line drove home the essence of Keyser Soze. Along the same lines, the greatest trick the current conservative moment has played on the general public is to convince us that we pay too much in taxes. Thus, there is NEVER a national conversation about increasing taxes (god forbid) or even bringing taxes back to the Clintonian era; and as long as we remain convinced that the deficit is a problem that has to be solved RIGHT NOW vs. when the economy is slightly more stable, it's open season on the powerless.
- NR409654
April 2, 2011 at 12:38pm
Here's a crazy conspiracy theory, but it's Saturday morning and I have some time on my hands: The Tea Party started after Obama was elected and made deficit reduction their raison d'etre. Now, I know that a vast majority of partiers are driven by hysteria, but could it be possible that the smarter politicians among the republicans drove the deficit train so hard to deliberately drive spending down, hoping to reduce the improvement in unemployment, and thus make Obama's re-election harder? I know, crazy. For that to be true, you'd have to believe that they believe government spending creates jobs in a bad economy. You'd also have to believe that they are that unpatriotic.
- NR409654
April 2, 2011 at 12:51pm
NR, unfortunately I think you're exactly right and those people do exist and some of them may well be near the top of the GOP, not all of them and maybe none at all.
- Pnaut
April 2, 2011 at 8:06pm
Butchie - we are not broke. We simply refuse to cut defense spending and go back to Clinton era tax rates. This idea that Republicans suddenly care about debt insults the intelligence.
- WandreyCer
April 3, 2011 at 2:03pm
They had a couple people on CNN this morning, one of whom was spelling out some of Paul Ryan's ideas. HELP. He thinks we should stop getting Medicare and receive vouchers to shop for insurance instead. I have news. The absolute last thing old, sick and/or disabled people need is to have to go shopping for health insurance. Which, lest people need reminding, can be cancelled - our whole neighborhood was dropped by one supplemental provider - if you live in certain zip codes it's difficult to buy supplemental insurance let alone get something that would replace Medicare. The whole idea is nuts. It's also transparently seeking more profits for the insurance industry. This, supposedly, will make us solvent and profitable as a nation again. Unbelievable.
- Sophia
April 3, 2011 at 7:37pm
Oh, for God's sake. Of course we're not broke. Now, go find me 1.5 trillion out of defense (about $750 billion in toto) and tax increases (70 billion per year if we went back to the Clinton standard). You're not close - nowheresville. Cut defense in HALF and raise taxes and you're a TRILLION short. The current welfare state is unsustainable, and must change. You don't like Paul Ryan's plans? Great. Whatta you got?
- butchie b
April 5, 2011 at 10:43am