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the Center for the Study of Compassionate Conservatism:
http://www.compassionateconservative.cc
Senate Must Fix Faith-Based
Initiative
By Michael B. Barkey
On Thursday, the House of Representatives narrowly passed President Bushıs
Faith-Based Initiative, which leaves the Senate the only remaining
obstacle to expansion of federal support for religious charities.
Recognizing that problems still exist with the House bill, Representative
Barney Frank remarked following passage: "I thought faith-based meant
faith in God, not faith in the Senate."
The 1996 welfare reform law, which was enacted to help overcome welfare
dependency by individuals, includes a provision that might in fact result
in welfare dependency for nonprofit groups. The snare might be the
charitable choice provision, which permits faith-based organizations to
compete more easily for direct grants from the federal government. If the
Senate goes along with Bush and the House of Representatives in expanding
charitable choice, an entire class of religious organizations could become
dependent on the government.
This state of affairs would undermine the effectiveness of the very
organizations working to help people make a transition from welfare to
work: It's hard for an organization to make the moral case for
independence and self-sufficiency when it is itself dependent on the dole.
As the debate in Washington progresses, it is becoming increasingly clear
that despite the potential drawbacks of charitable choice, direct federal
funding of charities will remain a central component of Bush's Faith-Based
Initiative. It may become even more the focal point now that the
president's proposed charitable tax credits are being scaled back on
Capitol Hill. In some ways, this is a fortunate development.
While measures like the charitable tax credit are important for boosting
charitable giving nationwide, it is wrong for conservatives like the
National Reviewıs Kate O'Beirne to push these measures alone.
Historically, people donate money to big national charities and other
causes, like symphonies and museums, operating within their own local
community. Small, inner-city ministries that already operate on shoestring
budgets are rarely able to afford the expensive outreach efforts necessary
to tap into the vast resources found in more affluent communities. A
strategy focused on tax reforms could leave the poorest neighborhoods in
greatest need of charity behind.
Fortunately, the charitable choice law can be changed to minimize the
hazards of nonprofit dependency while maximizing the benefits of
governmental assistance to the soldiers fighting on the forgotten fronts
in the war on poverty.
Here's how. The regulatory and tax reforms that make up a large portion of
Bush's Faith-Based Initiative should be advanced as part of a larger
reform strategy that limits charitable choice funds to small, time-limited
grants for organizations located in poor communities.
Under this reform, a charitable organization, like a welfare recipient,
would have time-limited benefits, becoming ineligible for governmental
assistance after three years. And, like work requirements for individuals,
government dollars for the next fiscal year would only flow to those
private charities actively working to find private sources of funding to
replace them. This would help to ensure that the percentage of an
organization's budget coming from government sources gradually declines
and that the group moves toward self-sufficiency.
The law would need to limit organizations to a single grant of no more
than three years. This is important because removing the prospect of
receiving another grant would greatly discourage an organization from
tailoring its program in midstream to appease government grant makers,
either by watering down essential religious content or chasing dollars
available for projects not within an organization's mission. An
organization would constantly be focused on its mission, the future and
independence from the state. Charitable organizations would not become a
constituency for expanding the welfare state -- something an expansion of
existing charitable choice could not protect against.
The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, created
earlier this year to help strengthen civil society, should be joined by
similar offices in the 50 states. Whether federal or state, each office
can assist poverty-fighting organizations to find private sources of
financing. For instance,
state and federal offices could publish a list of groups that receive
public dollars and that need additional private dollars to sustain their
good work. Similarly, the offices could hold charity fairs in more
affluent neighborhoods to heighten the awareness of community members and
business leaders about the need to support specific poverty fighters
operating on the "other side of the tracks." And other measures
-- such as media tours of successful charities to draw attention to worthy
efforts and best practices -- could help organizations that typically
cannot afford professional fund-raisers.
Instead of making private charities dependent upon a series of unending
and ever-expanding grants, government must help link individuals looking
to donate generously of their time and money to poverty-fighting
organizations in need. By reforming charitable choice, the government
could actually strengthen civil society, rather than subvert it. This is
the kind of active and energetic sense of citizenship that compassionate
conservatism envisions.
Michael B. Barkey is president of the Center for the Study of
Compassionate Conservatism and editor of "The Next Phase of Welfare
Reform" (forthcoming from the University Press of America).
Please be sure to forward this message along to your friends!
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