Once, good government meant just that. Government that worked for people. Government where professionals delivered valuable services for valuable tax dollars.

Government by and for people has been an American value ever since 1776. Abraham Lincoln embraced it as a cornerstone of the American democratic system in his address at the battlefield in Gettysburg.  He framed the Civil War as a fight to guarantee "government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Right up through Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, a solid majority of Americans believed that government was a force for good.  As Thomas Jefferson once stated: "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."

From free public schools, to Social Security; from Medicaid to the GI Plan, Americans believed that government could give a hand up so that with hard work and a good education, every American might succeed.  Then came Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan ran against government. "Government," he said, "does not solve problems; it subsidizes them."  More recently, George W. Bush and his ally Grover Norquist have echoed the theme. Together, they made tax cuts the only real domestic policy of George Bush's administration.

Way back in 1981, chief Republican strategist Lee Atwater said, "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."

Tax cuts deliver a Republican 'hat trick'—money in the pockets of the wealthiest donors, while eliminating programs for middle class and minorities; and make Democrats look like there's nothing they can do.

Under Bush's tax plan, more than 70 percent of the tax savings on investment income went to the top 2 percent, about 2.6 million taxpayers.  Among the 90 percent of all taxpayers who made less than $100,000, dividend tax reductions benefited just one in seven and capital gains reductions one in 20.

In Texas in 2003, Republicans quietly killed the inheritance tax that delivered to the state treasury $132 million per year, on average, between 2002 and 2007.  In 2002, Texas millionaires paid $334 million to the state; in 2007 they paid $2 million.  To make up the revenue, Republicans passed "tuition de-regulation."  Net result—inheritance taxes on Texas millionaires went down by 99.34%, and tuition on Texas students (and families) went up by $860, a 43% average increase, between 2003 and 2006.

Hat trick.

Grover Norquist, an advisor to Governor Perry and President Bush, once said, "My goal is to cut government…to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."  What Grover never told us is that it is our children in his bathtub. After a decade where leaders value tax cuts over kids, take a look at Texas children today.

We rank first nationally in the percentage of uninsured children and 49th in the percentage of children with immunizations. We have fewer Texans with post high school degrees than any other state.  In a world where what you earn depends on what you learn, our graduates are 48th in average SAT scores.  In higher education, the portion of young adults attaining a college degree is well below the national average, according to the Governor's Business Council.  In Texas, 29% of 25 to 34 year olds have a college degree, compared to 52% in Canada.  In fact, our state's 25 to 34 year olds are the least educated group of Texans in two decades, less educated than 35 to 44 year olds who are, in turn, less educated than 45 to 54 year olds.

What's worse, when you starve government, you demoralize those who strive to make it work. Compassionate conservatism has delivered plenty of conservatism, but not enough caring to do the job Americans expect. Witness what happened with FEMA in New Orleans, or with vets at Walter Reed or here in Texas, where a mother's anguished testimony over a son raped at TYC was eerily similar to scenes from Abu Ghraib. 

When all the evidence is in, facts will show that both the Governor and Attorney General knew what was happening way back in March 2005, yet did nothing for almost two years to get it fixed.  Just yesterday, the House passed an appropriations bill with $8.5 billion safely tucked away in a "rich man's rainy day fund" to guarantee tax cuts in 2010, right when Republican primaries start.

So what do we do?  Write a letter, attend a town hall meeting.  Vote or, better yet, run for office.  Show Texas that we care enough to make good government work—invest now, so our children can have a future that makes tomorrow better than today.

It's worth the fight!