Letter: U.S. poor don’t matter to Bush

Thursday, May 1, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

It cannot be his economic program, as he wipes out the budget surpluses generated under the Clinton administration and is driving the nation further into debt. It cannot be his support for education with his statement "Leave no child behind," when states are having to cut back support for the schools in all areas. It cannot be his plan for tax cuts to create jobs since his first tax cut did not do it and the real unemployment rate, not the published one of 5.8 percent, is over 10 percent.

He has managed to get us in a war halfway around the world, costing billions of dollars, alienating most of the rest of the world and for reasons he has been unable to substantiate. No, I do not get it.

Our nation's priorities should be on the home front, for the care of the nation's health, education and welfare. The April 27 issue of Parade Magazine had an excellent article by David Relin. It is a report on child hunger in America. In the article, he cites a profound statement by Dr. Deborah Frank at the Boston Medical Center, "Of all the problems facing the poor, hunger is the easiest to fix. We have the resources, but we do not have the political will to make the most helpless Americans our priority."

President Bush proclaimed himself a "compassionate conservative" but I have yet to see his compassionate side. He has spent billions on his Project Iraqi Freedom and tax cuts for the wealthy, but he refuses to spend anything to benefit the poor, the hungry of America.

RAYMOND HARBERT