When asked whether foreign aid was needed to help Hurricane Katrina’s victims, President Bush said Wednesday the United States has not asked for help: “This country is going to rise up and take care of it,” the president said. “You know we’d love help but we’re going to take care of our own business as well.”

Another 1.1 million Americans joined the total of those in poverty last year. If the nation were to take care of its business in chronic as well as acute cases, this group would be a good place to start.

The U.S. poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year, its fourth consecutive annual increase, and now stands at 37 million Americans, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. This pattern nearly matches the nation’s record-setting fifth year of stagnant income growth, adjusted for inflation. Though the rate of childhood poverty increased slightly nationwide, it rose last year by nearly 17 percent in Maine.

Elinor Goldberg, president of the Maine Children’s Alliance, said the news should alert Congress to the danger of cutting federal programs relied on by the poor. The most pressing one of these is Medicaid, where Congress negotiated the arbitrary cut of $10 billion over five years at a time when states can barely afford their own dollar matches, never mind picking up where the federal government stops coverage. Decent health care, as numerous studies have shown, and such basics as school attendance and performance, is one of the keys to getting out of poverty.

Other programs are equally important and affected by cuts – Food Stamps, Head Start, even heating assistance will be trimmed because of lost revenues from tax cuts. And Congress has yet to reauthorize Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, a vote that will surely wait while the Senate debates whether to eliminate the estate tax.

It is far too simple to suggest that rising poverty is caused simply by the actions of the current administration or of Congress – global trade over the last couple of decades may be a much more potent reason. But Washington can recognize that it has the ability to counter some of the harshest effects of poverty, ensuring that children have adequate food, care and instruction.

It can help adults trying to get out of poverty by assuring the minimum wage doesn’t lose ground to inflation. It can say that after more than four years of trying to build an economy from the top down, it understands the needs of raising the bottom up.

America has the wealth to take care of its own, both during emergencies and day to day. But it must match its wealth to will or millions more will fall into poverty, and tax cuts won’t rescue them.