- Originally published by the Center for American Progress on July 20, 2004
by Cassandra Butts and Clyde Williams
The recent focus of public attention on President Bush's refusal to
speak at the NAACP Annual Convention and his subsequent decision to
address the National Urban League convention have missed more
significant developments for African-Americans and other communities of
color. Rather than focus on whether the president accepts an audience
with organizations representing people of color -- which he should --
instead, the focus should be on an assessment of the Bush
administration's policies and their impact on people of color.
While Bush's snubbing of the oldest civil rights organization may have
offended the sensibilities of the members of the NAACP and others, a
critical assessment of the conservative policies of the Bush
administration illustrate a more serious assault on the interests of
people of color.
Under the cloud of the Bush administration's recession and "jobless"
recovery, much of the prosperity that communities of color experienced
during the 1990s economic boom has all but evaporated in the past four
years as poverty rates, on the decline at the end of the 90's, have
risen. The unemployment rate for African-Americans has doubled that of
whites -- 10.1 percent for African-Americans and 5.0 percent for whites
according to the June 2004 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Further, President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy have widened the
racial and ethnic wealth and income divide by rewarding those who have
investment income with lower taxes and penalizing those with wage
income with higher taxes.
A similarly bleak picture exists in health care policy where the Bush
administration has failed to put forward a reform plan to fix a
troubled health care system and promises of expanded funding for
HIV/AIDS treatment have largely gone unmet. As a result, the expanding
ranks of individuals lacking health care coverage include a
disproportionate number of African-Americans, Latinos and Native
Americans, and racial disparities in a range of health outcomes --
including mortality rates -- continues to exist.
In education, while the Bush administration's signature "No Child Left
Behind" has garnered the most attention because of the administration's
callous refusal to adequately fund the proposal and fulfill its promise
of greater accountability and student achievement, there are other
failings in the Bush administration's education policy that are equally
troubling. The Bush administration has provided the smallest increase
for education funding since 1996, frozen funding for after-school
programs, inadequately increased Title I funding for the nation's
poorest schools, and failed to increase Pell Grant awards. While
President Bush is fond of criticizing those in the education profession
for "the soft bigotry of low expectations" that he argues undermines
achievement for students of color, President Bush's own education
policies have significantly undermined the public education system and
exacerbated the problem of educational inequality.
In response to public criticism of the NAACP snubbing, the Bush
administration has sought to emphasize the president's "proven record"
in helping communities of color. And while nothing on the list was
quite as amusing as HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson's reaching way back
to President Abraham Lincoln's freeing the slaves to find
Republican Party accomplishments for African-Americans, the "proven
record" illustrates a tenuous connection between the rationales of the
Bush administration and the realities of life for many people of color.
For example, at the top of the Bush "proven record" is the expansion of
home ownership for people of color. While home ownership rates have
risen overall during the Bush administration -- although the rise has
slowed more recently -- this achievement can largely be attributed to
the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve that have kept long-term
interest rates low. More troubling has been the increase in
mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates that are directly
attributable to the job losses and financial vulnerability that many
low and middle-income families have experienced under the Bush
administration. At the same time, the Bush administration is advancing
a policy for funding Section 8 housing vouchers that will substantially
cut housing assistance for many low-income families.
The administration's record on civil rights enforcement is equally
undistinguished. Career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division at the
Department of Justice have publicly complained that Attorney General
John Ashcroft has allowed conservative politics to compromise key
enforcement decisions. One such example was during the consideration of
the 2002 Mississippi redistricting plan in which the Justice Department
sat on its hands against the recommendation of its career lawyers, thus
allowing a three-judge federal appeals court composed of three
Republican-appointed judges to approve a plan that diluted the strength
of the African-American vote and benefited the Republican candidate in
a heavily contested district. And Ashcroft continues to stand by while
the state of Florida purges alleged convicted felons from its voter
roles based on inaccurate data and a flawed process.
As the president and his advisers seek a do-over of the NAACP debacle
by accepting the invitation of the venerable National Urban League to
speak before its upcoming national conference, it is important that the
policies of the Bush administration and their impact on people of color
not recede into the shadows. If President Bush can't walk the walk on
issues of critical importance to the prosperity of people of
color, why should he be given a second chance to talk the empty talk of
"compassionate conservatism"? Hopefully, the leaders of the National
Urban League will not allow President Bush to address their convention
without addressing the issues that really matter.
Cassandra Q. Butts is the senior vice president and coordinator for
economic policy and Clyde Williams is vice president of state and local
government relations at the Center for American Progress.