Compassionate conservatism pretends the state does not raise its own money via coercion and harsh threats against taxpayers. Compassionate conservatism presumes that since the government just happens to have all this cash in the treasury coffers, why not do some good deeds with it? Handouts become symbols of generosity rather than acts of redistribution at gunpoint. Compassionate conservatism portrays government as a front of moral greatness, rather than a primary source of corruption, manipulation, and degradation
 

– James Bovard, The Bush Betrayal [2004]