President Bush exchanged gifts with his family at Camp David yesterday, posed for photographs with Marines, and issued a Christmas day radio address urging Americans to care for the sick, the elderly and the poor. …

“Many of our fellow Americans still suffer from the effects of illness or poverty, others fight cruel addictions, or cope with division in their families, or grieve the loss of a loved one,” he said in his weekly radio address.

“Christmastime reminds each of us that we have a duty to our fellow citizens, that we are called to love our neighbor just as we would like to be loved ourselves,” he added. “By volunteering our time and talents where they are needed most, we help heal the sick, comfort those who suffer, and bring hope to those who despair, one heart and one soul at a time.” [Washington Post]

Compare/Contrast:

A more stark example of skewed priorities would be hard to find: the Bush administration has admitted that budget pressures are forcing cuts in overseas food aid programs for the poor. Meanwhile, the richest 1 percent of Americans — those earning more than $337,000 a year — are reaping tens of billions of dollars in tax cuts.

On Wednesday The New York Times reported that the United States is curtailing all but emergency food aid and cannot honor funding commitments it had already made to non-governmental charities. Those affected include Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services, which run programs in farming self-sufficiency from Indonesia to Nicaragua.

The cuts already taken appear to be in the $100 million range — a huge amount to people in underdeveloped countries, where many earn less than $1 a day, but dwarfed by America’s budget deficit, which was $412 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept 30. [Boston Globe]

The Boston Globe editorial linked above presents some brain-numbing numbers — for example, “Bush tax cuts equal 57 percent of all new spending since the administration took office in 2001, including spending on Iraq.” Most of the reductions have accrued to the wealthy. And I could follow up with links to no end of articles on how wages are going down and the cost of health care is going up; on the increasing numbers of Americans without health insurance; on the destruction of Social Security; on the tax burden Bush is dumping on young people; etc. Bush has vowed to halve his whopping budget deficit in five years, but will not raise taxes to do so. Nor will he ask for even modest sacrifices from the wealthy. But the burden will fall hard on the rest of us, and hardest of all on the poor and sick and destitute.

There’s an old joke that God must love poor people, because he made so many of them. In that context, it can be truly said that George W. Bush is doing God’s work.

As you probably know, Bush’s “tax cuts uber alles” doctrine is championed by Grover Norquist and other “movement conservatives” who view government as the problem, not the solution. Starve the government beast, and you starve the despised programs that provide a safety net for the needy. In the Norquist world view, such “welfare” programs transfer wealth from the productive to the nonproductive. The nonproductive — the poor — are a useless impediment to prosperity. And government itself, with its taxes and regulations, is the biggest burden of all.

If government is so terrible, why even have one? There are places in the world with little government and no taxes. You’d think Big Business would flock to those places. But where there is no government, there is also no infrastructure, law enforcement, reliable sources of food and water, and other little amenities that make doing business possible.

So, I ask again, why is there government? The Bushies seem to think that government exists to protect the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful. When Bush cronies — Big Pharma, Big Oil, cattle barons, whatever — want something from government, they get it next day, special delivery. Just a couple of recent examples —

In response to demands from the timber and mining industries, the Bushies have made massive changes in the way national forests and other public lands are managed. Says today’s Los Angeles Times, “The price tag may include loss of endangered species and habitat, irreparable damage to wild land owned by all Americans and the silencing of public comments on logging and mining in remote areas, all in the name of ‘efficiency.’” Also in the LA Times – this editorial discusses the “corrupting links between the drug industry and the Bush administration,” and this one tells us how Big Pharma, with the Bushies’ help, is ripping off American consumers.

As I said, these are just two recent examples. They are not the exceptions, but the rule. Time and time again, even in matters involving safety and national security, Bush favors the interests of the powerful few. The rest of us get lectures about self-reliance.

Is this the purpose of government? Of our government? Consider —

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This seems to say that our government was established to benefit We, the People. Fundamentally, a democratic republic is a means by which We, the People enact policies to provide ourselves with economic and social stability. Having economic and social stability means that we can earn a living, save money, be secure in our homes, enjoy the benefits of infrastructure (bridges, electricity, postal services, etc.) , etc. etc.

We Americans are so used to stability that we think it’s a given, like air. But in fact, the stability we enjoy was created by the hard work of our ancestors and the (mostly wise) policies and programs they established by means of government.

Most of the domestic policies and programs the righties oppose –from workplace safety regulations, food and drug regulations, anti-trust laws, Social Security and Medicare, public schools, etc. — were created not out of some sense of “do-goodism” but in response to situations that were causing instability. For example, school lunch programs were established because, during World War II, many young men failed their Army physicals because of malnutrition. A well-nourished population benefits all of us. About a century ago, the federal government began to enact safety regulations for medicines and food because people were being poisoned by food and drugs that were not safe. Antitrust laws and trade regulations maintain healthy competition in the marketplace as well as provide consumer pro