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Faith-Based Fantasy Island By Bill Berkowitz
1) The dramatic reduction of the welfare rolls has not lifted people out of poverty and propelled them toward a hopeful future and 2) Faith-based organizations are not the godsend that he touted. When you add in the reality that charitable organizations are experiencing enormous difficulties because the number of people in need of services is outstripping donations; the president's "war on terrorism" continues to suck up ungodly amounts of taxpayer money; and the economic recovery has slowed perceptibly, you've got the background against which the debate over the reauthorization of welfare reform is taking place. Consider two recent studies and two recent White House events. New Lives for Poor Families? Mothers and Young Children Move through Welfare Reform, tracked single-mothers that have left the welfare rolls and moved into the work force. It found that many are now locked in a difficult struggle to survive without a safety net. The other report comes from University of Pennsylvania professor Byron Johnson who has found no evidence that faith-based community organizations achieve better results when dealing with America's social problems than secular organizations. President Bush, in his zeal to push his faith-based initiative and marriage-based welfare reform reauthorization, will pay them little heed to these reports. What then do these studies portend for the current reauthorization debate? Let's start with the president. Pushing the Faith On April 12, at a White House meeting with religious leaders and heads of charities from across the country, President Bush continued the drumbeat on behalf of the passage of the newly made-over faith-based initiative. On April 19, the president came back to the faith-based theme during a White meeting on welfare reform.
The president is particularly high on a CARE provision that calls for an $800 charitable tax deduction for married couples and $400 for individuals who do not itemize on their tax returns. The president also claims that CARE will make it easier for smaller religious groups to apply for federal money. However, CARE's passage may not be a slam-dunk. According to the New York Times, "Senators of both parties have objected to the proposal because the government already allows a substantial total standard deduction for non-itemizers of $4,550 for singles and $7,600 for married couples. Some senators have raised questions about adding a separate $800 charitable deduction for married couples on top of that, arguing that it will encourage fraud. 'It's just too easy a thing to cheat on,' one Democratic staff member said." "Faith can move people in ways that government can't," Bush said. "Government can write checks, but it can't put hope in people's hearts or a sense of purpose in people's lives. That is done by people who have heard a call and who act on faith. And I'm not talking about a particular religion. I'm talking about all religions under the almighty God." The president reminded his audience that those thousands of good deeds by neighbors helping neighbors are what America is all about. During the April 12 meeting Bush also talked about the troubles that many charities have experienced since 9/11: There has been a drop in donations at the same time that demand for services has increased, he said. Charities are being stretched to the breaking point. In point of fact, this funding crisis predates 9/11. Bush pointed out that America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger-relief charity, had seen a 40 percent decrease in food donations and financing, while 80 percent of its chapters reported increasing requests for help. "The past seven months have shown how much our country depends on charities, yet today America's charities face very difficult times," he said. "Our government must recognize the problem and deal with it." Other than relating it to 9/11, the president offered no explanation as to why more people are in need at this time. Reduced Caseloads, Increased Need The president may not be interested in, or able to connect the dots, but let's try to help him out. As the debate on the reauthorization of the 1996 welfare reform bill proceeds, the pro-welfare reform crowd has focused on several basic messages. The predominant message is that the welfare roles have been reduced dramatically in states across the country. Second, we hear that poverty rates are lower than they've been in a long time. Third, marriage is the road out of poverty. The president is proposing spending up to $300 million in welfare money to encourage marriage: Not decent jobs, access to education, universal childcare, or health care coverage, but encouraging marriage? So, we have a president who calls for greater reductions in welfare caseloads all the while bemoaning the fact that charities are overwhelmed. The sucking sound that you hear is the shifting of the burden and responsibility for helping the needy shifting from the public sector to the private sector. If welfare reform has been such a major success, why are charities bearing such a heavy burden? And why is that burden increasing? According to New Lives welfare reform is not the dazzling success its backers claim. This new study, by researchers at Stanford University, the University of California, Columbia and Yale, found that "Most mothers who were on welfare four years ago have found jobs but still live in poverty with their young children," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. New Lives tracked 700 single-mother headed families in California, Florida and Connecticut who were living on an average of about $12,000 per year; about half the women with jobs had no health-care benefits, one in six families "still relies on food banks, one in five lives in roach-infested apartments and rations meals, and two in five mothers suffer from disabling bouts of depression." The Associated Press reported that Wade Horn, who heads the Administration for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Bush Administration, "agreed that the system is not doing much to improve the lives of children. That's why the administration wants to add improving child well-being to the list of goals for the welfare law, which is being renewed this year," Horn said. Faith-Based Fantasy Island
In the forward to Johnson's recent study, DiIulio writes: "We do not yet know either whether America's religious armies of compassion, local or national, large or small, measurably outperform their secular counterparts." He added that we do not know "whether… it is the 'faith' in the 'faith factor,' independent of other organizational features and factors, that accounts for any observed differences in outcomes." Flawed welfare reform and charities going bust are two examples of collateral damage in the homeland caused by the president's "war on terrorism." |
Bush can only pray now that his Faith-based initiative, which has faced criticism from both the left and right, will become law 
© 1997-2002 BEI