Bush's bitter deal.

• Position: Comment - George W. Bush

By now, the contours of the next four years are clear. George W. Bush, emboldened by his reelection and suffering from the delusion that God is taking him by the hand, has set his sights on more military interventions abroad and more destructiveness at home.

He believes the primary functions of government are to wage war, to fatten the wallets of the rich, and to maximize the profits of corporations. On the home front, he is determined to knock down one of the last pillars of the New Deal by privatizing Social Security. Not for him the promoting of the general welfare. Leave those duties to the churches.

He is a true believer in the Republican cause: to delegitimize government as a force for social good, and to throw the American people to the wolves of the market.

One of the most ridiculous passages in Bush's State of the Union address was when he talked about "restraining the spending appetite of the federal government."

He's one to talk. He's been spending on war like there's no tomorrow.

He has sunk the deficit to $427 billion this year, and then he vows to make "tax relief" permanent, which means the rich are going to be able to skate away with loads more cash that otherwise would go to the Treasury.

So who is Bush to praise "the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline"?

But there's method to his madness.

Bush actually likes the deficit. It gives him an excuse to eviscerate any social program he doesn't like.

And so, having sunk the deficit to ear-popping lows, Bush now says there's no money left in the cupboard for solving our domestic problems.

Thus he pledges to hold the "growth of discretionary spending below inflation."

He's cutting way back on food stamps, Medicaid, prescription drugs for veterans, and on money that goes to housing and heating for the poor. And he is taking the axe to the $637 million Community Development Block Grants program, which provides "a wide range of housing, nutrition, education, and employment services to low income people," as The New York Times notes.

"A cut of this magnitude will force communities to close youth centers, curtail neighborhood revitalization programs, help fewer elderly homeowners stay in their homes, leave poor neighborhoods without water and sewer services, and reduce or eliminate a host of other activities," says Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

We've got thirty-five million people living in poverty in the United States, and homeless shelters are turning away people for lack of beds. Ten million people--many of them kids--aren't getting enough to eat. And all Bush is going to do is make...