Since then, his talk has supported this position. He has reached out to the Congressional Black Caucus, attended Democratic meetings and shown a willingness to meet with those who did not support him. But he has been unwilling to blunt his hard-right, conservative policies. His talk suggests a centrist set of concerns; his policy, with few exceptions, is anything but centrist.

A budget proposal is one of the executive branch's most important policy instruments. Unfortunately, Bush's budget is a testament to his strong commitment to wealthy conservatives and his almost total disregard for the nation's poor and minority citizens.

After years of hearing about the growing economic divide between the wealthy and everybody else, Bush makes it clear that his number one priority is to exacerbate this divide by redistributing money from the working and middle-class to the wealthy.

Bush's agenda is not about healing or inclusion, it's about real policies for the wealthy and privileged and mere words for the rest of us. To add insult to injury, he has suggested that many of the concerns of middle-class and low-income people should be addressed by private organizations, such as communities of faith, rather than the government.

In the world's wealthiest nation, 43 million Americans are without health insurance, almost 17 percent of U.S. children live in poverty and threats to Social Security and Medicare put 48 million seniors at risk.

In the face of this reality, Bush's proposed 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax cut is unwarranted and will do little to address these issues, especially since 40 percent of the cuts will benefit only the wealthiest 1 percent of our population, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

His proposal is so ridiculous that even some of its wealthy beneficiaries, such as investor Warren Buffett and philanthropist David Rockefeller Jr., are protesting the move to repeal the estate tax. They understand what many of us sometimes forget: that paying taxes is a responsibility of those who live in the most prosperous democracy of all time.

We mustn't fall prey to rhetoric that suggests taxes are a burden to avoid, especially if you are fortunate enough to be wealthy. Instead, we should recognize our responsibility to those less fortunate than us. A democracy cannot be just concerned with helping those that need it the least. Freedom in a democracy comes with duties, including paying taxes.

If Bush were really interested in being the president of all Americans, he would ensure that payroll taxes -- the kind of tax most often paid by low-income people of color - would be reduced. Almost 75 percent of low-income American families pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. Or he would provide a tax credit to low-wage workers and families.

He would make certain that the future of Social Security and Medicare would be preserved, especially for low-income Americans who do not have the luxury of private retirement plans.

Bush should also genuinely attempt to mend the electoral system. There must be money in the president's budget to fix both the mechanical and systemic failures that deprived many minority citizens, especially those in Florida, of their basic right for their votes to be counted.

Despite symbolic gestures to portray himself as a president of all Americans, Bush's tax proposal makes it clear that he values the rich and has little interest in resolving the social disparities that continue to stain our democracy.

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john a. powell is the executive director of the Institute on Race & Poverty and holds the Marvin J. Sonosky Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis. He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

(Editor's note: The author's spelling of his name is the legal and preferred way.)