During his first run for the White House five years ago, Bush positioned himself as a “different kind of Republican.” When the House GOP, led by Tom DeLay, pushed a bill that would cut benefits low-income families rely on, Bush embraced triangulation and told reporters that the Republican Congress shouldn’t try to “balance their budget on the backs of the poor.”
This was, we were told, the era of compassionate conservatism. But as this excellent Washington Post piece explained today, there are spiritual limits to Bush’s compassion.
Bush’s 2006 budget proposed slashing public housing subsidies, food stamps, energy assistance, community development, social services and community services block grants — programs that for decades have constituted the federal anti-poverty fight. While congressional budget makers have promised to restore some of the funding, they also have agreed to the president’s tax cuts and overall spending targets, meaning there will be stiff competition for a shrinking pot of money.
At the same time, Bush’s budget proposal for next year contemplates adding $385 million in new religion-based programs to this year’s eventual total. The federal government awarded more than $2 billion in such grants in 2004 — nearly double the amount awarded in 2003. […]
“It is almost as if we’re being replaced,” said [Jacquelyn] Cornish, who started out with the Druid Heights organization as a volunteer when it was formed 31 years ago. She became director in 1989. “Potential cuts or talk of it wakes up everyone. It takes you off course. And it leaves you wondering, ‘Why?’ “
Why? Because we have a president who cares more about putting tax dollars in collection plates than he does effective social service programs for families in need. It’s that simple.
The traditional argument against Bush’s faith-based initiative is the constitutional argument. And to be sure, the legal concerns here are serious enough to give pause to anyone who takes the First Amendment seriously.
But even if we put church-state arguments aside, this Post article helps highlight another part of the problem, which sometimes gets overlooked — the ability to provide services to families in need.
The president who talks about compassion is gutting anti-poverty programs, but he’s also, in a manner of speaking, trying to privatize aid to the poor. But instead of the usual privatization — shifting from government to private businesses — Bush wants to replace secular service providers with religious ones.
“There’s all kinds of ways to quit drinking,” [Bush] added in remarks to a March conference of faith-based social service providers, “but one of the most effective ways to quit drinking is for a person to make a choice to go to a place that changes your heart.”
That’s charming, but ultimately meaningless, rhetoric. The White House is cutting funding for established charities that contract with the government to provide secular aid to families in need. Simultaneously, Bush is boosting funding for ministries that have limited experience, whose counselors are not regulated or licensed, whose goal evangelistic, and who will discriminate with public funds.
All the while, there’s no evidence religious service providers are better than secular ones, and there’s no evidence that these ministries are prepared to handle the influx of beneficiaries who will need assistance now that Bush has cut aid to every other anti-poverty initiative.
If this is compassion, I’ll take antipathy.