He urges them to go off to some foreign land and fight. What national interests do we have over there? Or is he starting a war just to stimulate our economy? Or did the president of Poverty make an insulting comment to our commander-in-thief?

Just like the spoiled little brat who always gets his way, Bush will pout and destroy anything that he personally doesn't like....disgusting.

Bush Prods U.S. Firms, Youth to Join War on Poverty Updated: Sun, May 20 3:58 PM EDT
By Patricia Wilson

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (Reuters) - Sounding a call to arms, President Bush used a speech at a Catholic university on Sunday to prod corporate America and the nation's youth to join him in "a determined assault" on poverty.

In a return to his "compassionate conservative" campaign roots, Bush devoted a commencement address at Notre Dame to framing his faith-based solutions to society's ills as the next front in the war on poverty begun 40 years ago by President Lyndon Johnson.

"Compassion often works best on a small and human scale," he told 2,500 graduates and guests. "It is generally better when a call for help is local, not long distance."

Bush's plan to let churches, synagogues and mosques help deliver $250 billion in federal social programs, ranging from aid to pregnant teens to helping the homeless, is a pillar of the Republican president's domestic agenda and a flash point for some who see a blurring of the constitutional line between church and state.

"Our society must enlist, equip, and empower idealistic Americans in works of compassion that only they can provide," Bush said. "A determined assault on poverty will require both an active government and active citizens."

In a speech quoting Johnson, Mother Teresa and Knute Rockne, the legendary former coach of Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish" football team, Bush called on corporate America "to give more and to give better," and announced a White House summit of business and philanthropic leaders later this year.

CHALLENGES APATHY

Bush also threw out a challenge to his audience.

"You are the generation that must decide," he said. "Will you ratify poverty and division with your apathy or will you build a common good with your idealism?"

Despite support from Republican leaders and some prominent Democrats, Bush's faith-based plan has drawn fire from both ends of the political spectrum.

Religious conservatives worry that the lure of federal money will lead charities to abandon their spirituality. Civil libertarians worry how government aid for charitable work will be separated from money used to promote religious activities and how religious organizations will be defined.

Apart from expanding a provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act that allows faith-based groups to compete for federal funds, Bush's plan would encourage giving by expanding tax credits for personal and corporate charitable donations.

It also would set up a "compassion capital fund" to match private giving with federal dollars to help small community and faith-based charities extend their reach.

On Sunday, Bush added new elements -- a three-fold increase to $75 million in the Housing and Urban Development Department's budget to help low-income Americans buy homes and $1.6 billion over five years in new funding for drug treatment. Faith-based groups would be allowed to compete for both, he said.

Bush, who gave up alcohol and found God almost 15 years ago, is a Methodist who reads the Bible every day and sometimes prays in the Oval Office. He has given religion a high profile at the White House and focused his second week in office on the faith-based initiative and "compassionate conservatism."

FINISH THE JOB

Reviving those themes on Sunday could help disarm critics who have accused Bush of forsaking the compassion and emphasizing the conservative since he was sworn in on Jan. 20.

The venue also is politically fortuitous. Bush has made a point of meeting with cardinals and archbishops on his travels nationwide and his aides have been courting Catholics, one of the largest and most potent swing groups in the electorate.

Bush has chosen John DiIulio, a 40-year-old political science professor from the University of Pennsylvania and a devout Roman Catholic, to head the faith-based office in the White House. He has until July 27 to come up with formal recommendations turning Bush's vision into reality.

"Our nation has confronted welfare dependency, but our work is only half done," the president said. "Now we must ... revive the spirit of citizenship, to marshal the compassion of our people."

Bush, the fifth U.S. president to be Notre Dame's commencement speaker, following in the footsteps of his father in 1992, Ronald Reagan in 1981, Jimmy Carter in 1977 and Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws degree and received a warm welcome.

On Monday, he returns to his alma mater, Yale University in Connecticut, for commencement ceremonies at which he will give what an official called a "brief, lighthearted" speech and where his reception was expected to be a little chillier.

Protests are planned ranging from professors boycotting the ceremony to students refusing to clap

-- Kate Marloo (kmarloo@gigsofpowerfulwattage.com), May 22, 2001

Answers

Uh Kate, do you know the proud Nation of Pverty is? I really don't think you have musch to worry about.

-- ROTFL (can't@believe.this), May 22, 2001.

Good troll post Kate

-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), May 22, 2001.

Just curious.

Were/are any of the Peace Corp troopies screened for religious tendencies?

Can't be too careful ya know.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), May 23, 2001.

It ain't just young people, Dumbya the Antichrist is going to wipe out the entire human race. He is just the right combination of dumb and dangerous to make humans extinct.

-- (gaaaawd is @ he. dumb!), May 23, 2001.