Political cynics sometimes say that an apathetic and uninformed public will get the government it deserves, but however well the American public fits this description, nobody deserves the horror that befell survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast.

The total failure to help people abandoned upon rooftops and held up by thugs in the streets was an unparalleled disgrace. Coming amid the ongoing fiasco of the war in Iraq, it not only calls into question the ability of the government to do its most basic job—that of protecting its citizens—but says something even more disturbing.

The current administration has renounced the idea that the government has an active role to play in expanding opportunity and empowering the young and the poor to be successful. Franklin Roosevelt believed every individual had a right to “freedom from want,” and he made policies “based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all of our fellow men within our gates.”

Even as he prepared the country for World War II, Roosevelt pledged to expand unemployment and “old-age pensions” and to make healthcare and jobs more available. He understood this is what people expect from their government. “The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations,” he said in his 1941 State of the Union address.

By these standards, the Bush administration failed both before and after the storm. Federal authorities showed no urgency and zero compassion as mostly poor, mostly minority Americans died on national television. But even before he was the last to respond in New Orleans, President Bush has never demonstrated an interest in solving actual problems or improving the lives of real people.

Poverty has increased under his leadership. He has cut food and housing assistance, proposed large reductions to Medicaid for the poor and elderly and even suggested cutting veterans’ benefits during wartime. No Child Left Behind, the president’s proudest domestic accomplishment, has caused problems for local districts because the administration refuses to fund it sufficiently.

The difficult truth is that the poor have been systematically ignored in this country for more than a generation. We have more poverty, less health insurance, greater infant mortality rates and worse schools than other developed nations, but for five years, on every issue, the president has adhered to a preconceived agenda that is based not in facts or research but in an abstract conservative philosophy that never had much to do with reality.

From the New Deal to the 1970s, American government was dedicated to making every citizen’s life safer and more comfortable, with less risk, hardship and unnecessary suffering. Programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as redevelopment and job programs aimed at chronically poor areas, were very successful and reduced the poverty rate from more than 40 percent of the population in the 1930s to just over 11 percent in 1973, the lowest ever. It’s almost impossible to compare life in the U.S., especially for the least well-off, before the Great Depression and in the mid-1960s.

But starting with Barry Goldwater, the Republican Party developed an irrational hatred of government. The right wing of the Republican Party rose to power, attacking government as “the problem, not the solution,” and they’ve made relentless attempts to cut effective government programs, particularly those created by liberals to aid the poor and minorities.

Joined to this anti-government attack has always been a lot of preaching about the virtues of individualism, self-reliance and good ol’ American ingenuity. In his 2000 campaign, Bush claimed the poor should “lift themselves up by their bootstraps.”

Beyond the hypocrisy of this policy being espoused by a man frequently bailed out by his father, it might otherwise be a fair-minded sentiment—that is, if it were actually a possibility for many people.
The elimination of anti-poverty programs and the decrepit state of urban schools make it impossible for the poor to gain the social leverage necessary for success. A third-grader from New Orleans won’t be going to college if he’s already far behind his middle-class peers by age seven. No amount of bootstrapping will get him a decent job down the road.

The conservative approach dooms disadvantaged populations to stay that way and, if anything, become worse off compared to everyone else, which is how the country has been trending recently.  Behind the high-minded rhetoric about individualism lies a callousness about real people’s lives.

This is what the New Orleans disaster exposed. As he toured the devastated coast, the president reminisced about wild partying in his younger days and talked about rebuilding Trent Lott’s giant mansion.

Bush is a uniquely out-of-touch politician, but across the board the Republican leadership has been advocating for policies rather than for people, sacrificing spending on levees for the sake of smaller government and tax cuts, and appointing unqualified yes-men to lead disaster relief, without regard for the suffering they might ultimately cause.

People are furious in America right now, and for good reason, but nothing will change unless this anger is channeled into political action. The only way to get the government we deserve is to start putting pressure on the government we have and make it clear they owe us more.