THE BUSH AGENDA
Know Us by Our Works
Give faith a chance to solve society's problems.
President Bush has created a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As the first director of this new office, I am heartened by the support that is pouring in from all quarters.
Not all reaction has been sympathetic, however, and some sharp questions have been asked about our agenda. I would like to address these concerns, and to allay some unfounded fears.
First, nobody has suggested that federal social programs should be run by religious or charitable organizations or that government should fund programs that make religious profession a condition of receiving services. To put it bluntly, government is not going to "fund religion." Rather, my office's work will revolve around concrete objectives.
These are: to augment charitable giving, to end discrimination against religious providers of social services, and to mobilize support for grassroots groups, both religious and secular, that tackle our toughest social problems through public/private partnerships.
To increase charitable giving, the president proposes specific measures, including expanding the federal charitable deduction to the 80 million taxpayers (70% of all filers) who don't itemize and thus can't claim this benefit. He also advocates the creation of a "compassion capital fund" that will match private giving with federal dollars. To eliminate discrimination and create opportunities, my office will work through centers in five departments (Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Justice) to reduce regulatory obstacles to the full participation of faith-based and community organizations in the provision of social services.
The fear most frequently expressed by our critics is that my office blurs the line between church and state. I have taught basic American government for nearly two decades, and I love James Madison, the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment as much as anyone does. But the church-state concerns that surround, and might well hound, our initiatives are not well founded.
Some religious leaders posit that almost any interface between government and congregations willy-nilly creates a slippery slope. They aver that mixing the sacred with the secular, even where Caesar has only a dime in the church dollar, will enervate their organizations' spiritual character, drain the faith from "faith-based" groups and transform them into wards of the welfare state.
Comprehensive data on how hundreds of urban congregations serve needy neighbors should relax such fears. According to University of Pennsylvania researcher Ram A. Cnaan, the primary beneficiaries of the congregations' good works are needy children who aren't themselves members of the congregation that serves them. In Philadelphia, for example, a city with some 2,000 community-serving congregations, you can count on your fingers and toes the churches, synagogues and mosques that make services contingent on an expression of religious commitment.
Nationally, countless community-serving ministries have had partnerships with secular organizations and public agencies without losing their way. The "charitable choice" provision of the 1996 welfare reform law changed the federal government's procurement and performance-based contracting rules so that religious organizations that provide social services could compete for support on the same basis as other any nongovernmental providers of these services, and do so without having to hide their religious basis.
Besides, just because somebody levels a playing field doesn't mean that it will become obligatory for everyone to suit up and play. If the Rev. Wilson Goode in Philadelphia or the Rev. Floyd Flake in New York or any other community-based religious leader wishes to enter in partnership with government, why should the concerns of those who would opt out keep such leaders from participating? Likewise, why shouldn't a substance-abuser, ordered by a court to obtain treatment, be given a list of state-approved providers that includes faith-based programs?
Some strict civil libertarians prophesy that almost any government/religious partnerships will corrupt the state and embolden religious bigots by degenerating into tax-subsidized proselytizing. They insist there's no way to keep federal funds from spilling over into collection plates, and no way to prevent money from flowing to groups representing malevolent traditions.
Well, look at where we are right now: Only about 4% of federal domestic spending is administered directly by federal employees. Instead, Washington's programs are administered by vast networks of government agencies, for-profit firms and nonprofit organizations. Most of the participating nonprofits are secular, and most are OK. But do none legally perform work and advocate ideas that are offensive to many Americans? C'mon.
Likewise, it's true that if, say, a church spends $10 on Bibles and $10 on soup, and you give the church $10 more, it can now spend $20 on Bibles and the same $10 on soup. But as anyone who has ever actually worked in the secular nonprofit administration of government grants and programs knows, money is equally fungible (and reprogrammable) where no priests or other religious people are found. Also, we should give federal civil servants their due. Four decades of government-by-proxy have led them to develop mostly reliable procedures for segregating program accounts and enforcing compliance with antidiscrimination policies.
Supposing, however, that, despite the benevolent traditions and just plain good people behind the vast majority of religious social service providers; despite the fact that malicious intentions and characters are probably no more (and arguably rather less) common in community-serving ministries than they are in other organizations; and regardless of how faithfully all relevant funding and antidiscrimination rules are followed by all concerned, some federal money--say a penny out of every $10,000--nonetheless finds its way to a group whose nonnegligible nastiness has a religious-theological bent as opposed to a political-ideological one.
What then?
If you shout "stop" to charitable choice because, despite all the secular options and safeguards, there is a tiny probability of funding nasty people who call themselves religious, then you ought also to shut down the extant government-by-proxy system; it has its nasty people, too. While you're at it, avoid unplugging toasters (you could catch fire) and crossing the street (you could get run over).
Libertarians are usually resistant to risk-aversion arguments, but on this issue some have already succumbed, driven there in part by the notion that federal faith-based and community initiatives will further delay the withering away of the welfare state. I can only refer them to the unmistakable lessons of 1994-96--when sweeping efforts were made to slash government programs--and submit that the grunt work at hand involves devolving federal programs, where appropriate, to the grassroots level. This should not only yield major, cost-saving improvements in government performance, but also strengthen civil society, restrain government growth and make it possible for all Americans to grasp economic opportunity and avoid public dependence.
My office's third main task is to work with local leaders to identify and support faith-based and community programs that address social needs. These include expanding effective literacy programs, mentoring millions more at-risk youth, reducing prisoner recidivism, supplying sound drug treatment, closing the digital divide and expanding home eldercare programs. We are on the prowl for best-practices programs that are designed to operate on a citywide scale and make it easy to track their performance.
There are, as yet, no suitably scientific studies that "prove" the efficacy or cost-effectiveness of faith-based approaches to social ills, or that support the success claims of certain well-known national faith-based programs. But we already know more of a scientific nature about the extent and efficacy of these programs than the architects of the Great Society did when they launched their big-government initiatives in the 1960s. Such studies as we have are generally encouraging. More research is under way, and we look forward to generating not only more initiatives, but more reliable data on how faith-based and community initiatives have fared both in absolute and relative terms.
Facts, not faith; performance, not politics; results, not religion; and, we pray, humility, not hubris, will guide my office in advising President Bush and in helping the administration put flesh on the bone of compassionate conservatism. From the results of literacy and other programs to the riches of racial reconciliation, we will be happy to fight for our ideas, delighted to battle on behalf of grassroots healers, and grateful to be judged by our works.
Mr. DiIulio is director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
