He may be conservative, but he's not compassionate

The Bush Administration has officially become the real life version of Orwell's 1984. You know, the book where the government tuned everything around. Billboards were plastered with slogans like "war is peace" and "freedom is slavery." Well, I guess Cheney has read the book one too many times and has taken it to heart.

They started with things like the "clean skies initiative" which actually means "dirtier skies" according to a government panel's investigation. (Link)

Then there was "invading Iraq will make us safer by getting rid of the terrorists there" which actually meant "creating a new terrorist breeding ground in Iraq" (Link)

Now there is "values" which apparently means "no values." Yes, Bush is planning sharp cuts in HUD community development plans to ensure that everyone can at least have a roof over their head. Any claim by conservatives that Bush is a moral man with family values is now completely gone. There is no credibility left in that arguement. All you have left is a cowboy with bad grammer.

Bush Plans Sharp Cuts in HUD Community Efforts (Link)

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01

The White House will seek to drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development's $8 billion community branch, purging dozens of economic development projects, scrapping a rural housing program and folding high-profile anti-poverty efforts into the Labor and Commerce departments, administration officials said yesterday.

The proposal in the upcoming 2006 budget would make good on President Bush's vow to eliminate or consolidate what he sees as duplicative or ineffective programs. Officials said yesterday that economic development programs are scattered too widely in the government and have proved particularly ineffectual at HUD.

Advocates for the poor, however, contended that the White House is trying to gut federal programs for the poorest Americans to make way for tax cuts, a mission to Mars and other presidential priorities. Administration officials would not say how much the consolidation would save, but it could lead to steep funding cuts. That is because the HUD programs would have to compete for resources in Commerce and Labor budgets that are not likely to expand to accommodate the shuffle.

"I'm always willing to look at consolidation, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions," said Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing and community development programs.

The plan was detailed in a December memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget to HUD. The document provides one of the first concrete examples of the types of cuts in the works as the administration comes to grips with a soaring deficit.

"The purpose of the exercise has nothing to do with achieving or not achieving savings," said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the Feb. 7 release of the president's fiscal 2006 budget request.

"What we are trying to accomplish is to meet our obligation to people living in distressed communities, to hold communities accountable for helping those people and to become more efficient in the process," another official said.