Bush Staying Out of Compassion Fights

The fights to protect AmeriCorps, the community service volunteer program, and to give the children of working poor families the same tax break that better-off Americans are getting have come down to power struggles across the Capitol.

In both instances, President Bush is -- at least nominally -- on the side of generosity, as befits a self-described "compassionate conservative." But there's no sign he has put his muscle to work.

. Last month the agencies counting on AmeriCorps volunteers were told that many of them would receive token help -- or none at all. Teach for America, a program that sends highly motivated college graduates into troubled schools, had 2,300 slots cut back to 575.

"It was a shock to us," director Wendy Kopp told me. "The president and the first lady say they love the program and have encouraged us to expand it, so we were ramping up to go to 3,300. Now we have 1,800 in training and may have to tell two-thirds of them they have no place to teach."

Many in the volunteer world had hoped the president would back up his praise for AmeriCorps by asking Congress this month for additional funds in a bill supplying emergency assistance to help several other agencies get through the final couple of months of the current fiscal year. He did not.