In a few hours, the Senate is going to vote — and will almost certainly pass — what’s left of President Bush’s “faith-based” initiative. If the bill reaches Bush’s desk, as seems likely, the White House will probably put its best face on it and claim that this is a major victory. For those of us who’ve been following the debate over the plan since Bush’s proposal was unveiled over two years ago, however, this may be the biggest domestic policy defeat of Bush’s presidency.
Bush initially unveiled his faith-based plan just two weeks after his inauguration. At the time, the White House labeled the scheme the “signature domestic policy initiative” of the administration.
The plan had many components, but essentially the Bush proposal was rewriting the rules as to how religious groups could apply for public funding to perform social services. To be sure, many religiously affiliated organizations had been partnering with the federal government for many years. Groups such as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services, for example, had received millions in tax dollars in recent decades.
Bush wasn’t satisfied merely allowing religious groups to compete for government grants; he wanted to change the way in which these partnerships were formed. When a group such as Lutheran Social Services received tax dollars from the government, there were certain conditions — which the administration called “burdensome regulations” — to keep the funding legal and accountable.
Groups that received funding could not discriminate against beneficiaries, nor against employees hired with public funds. Groups also had to create separate tax-exempt entities to accept and manage the public funds, so that ministries could not mix religious and secular work, and to allow government auditing to ensure tax dollars were being spent properly. Moreover, since these religious organizations were contracting with the government to perform secular services, the government required that the groups accepting public funds remain religiously neutral. In other words, no proselytizing with our money.
Bush identified these safeguards and sought to remove them. That, in essence, was what the fight over the faith-based initiative was all about.
The president’s plan passed the House in July 2001, but stalled in the Senate, where Democrats were in the majority (thank you, Jim Jeffords) and were hesitant to hand the president a sledgehammer to break down the wall of separation between church and state.
Today, a revamped version of the initiative will be on the floor of the Senate and will probably pass with nary a negative vote. The president’s allies in the Senate say the bill has been “scaled back” and “stripped down” from its original incarnation. That’s good spin, but it hardly represents just how much the bill the president wanted has been gutted. In short, this bill, now called the CARE Act, is a shell of its former self.
What’s been taken out? Just about everything that was considered even remotely controversial to nearly anyone. Last week, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who had been the leading crusader for the faith-based initiative in the Senate essentially raised the white flag and agreed to abandon all of the president’s goals of making it easier for religious groups to receive public funds while discriminating in hiring and trying to convert those participating in the public programs.
The leading opponents of the plan in the Senate, Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), had made it clear that they were going to fight to include church-state and civil rights protections in the bill. The GOP had a choice, give up on the controversial elements of the bill or vote against civil rights amendments. There were even hints that a filibuster was under consideration. Santorum knew he didn’t have the votes; he cried uncle.
So what’s left of the bill? The new-and-improved legislation increases tax incentives to make it easier for taxpayers to contribute to charities, including allowing deductions up to $250 for non-itemizers. As the Washington Post noted last week, there are also provisions such as “tax breaks for donations to food banks.” Yeah, real controversial stuff. With so little contentiousness left in the bill, even the staunchest allies of the First Amendment have little reason to vote against this legislation.
This entire two-year ordeal demonstrates a couple of things. First, the president’s agenda continues to face opposition in Congress, even though there’s war being waged and Bush’s approval ratings are up. Congress, particularly the Senate, does not appear inclined to become a rubber stamp for the White House.
Second, progressive opponents of Bush’s agenda can succeed when organized properly, even against long odds. When the president unveiled his faith-based initiative, the conventional wisdom was that it would pass fairly easily. Opponents carefully and methodically developed an opposition coalition that included the religious, civil liberties, civil rights, educational, and social service communities. Their plan worked perfectly.
The bill will pass today and probably cruise through the House. Bush will presumably host a Rose Garden ceremony to sign the one bill that’s eluded him for over two years. He’ll claim victory, of course, but the truth is Bush got his hat handed to him on this one.
I’ll let you know what the final vote in the Senate is later on today.