← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · kminta
Thread ID: 6072 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-04-10
2003-04-10 00:06 | User Profile
In "Corrupting Charity: Why Government Should Not Fund Faith-Based Charities," Cato's Michael Tanner makes a strong case against expanding the amount of government dollars that now go to religiously founded institutions. He claims that mixing government and charity in the manner proposed by new legislation could "undermine the very things that have made private charity so effective." Here is some of what he has to say:
[url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-062es.html]http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-062es.html[/url]
Religious charities as another government dependent
The potential for government meddling is tremendous, and, even if regulatory authority is not abused, regulation will require a redirection of scarce resources from charitable activities to administrative functions. Officials of faith-based charities may end up spending more time reading the Federal Register than the Bible. As they became increasingly dependent on government money, faith-based charities could find their missions shifting, their religious character lost, the very things that made them so successful destroyed. In the end, [President] BushÃâ¢s proposal may transform private charities from institutions that change peopleÃâ¢s lives to mere providers of services, little more than a government program in a clerical collar. Most important, the whole idea of charity could become subtly corrupted; the difference between the welfare state and true charity could be blurred. Charitable giving is at a record high; there is no need to risk deepening the involvement of government and religious charity. . . .
Today private charities receive about 30 percent of their funding from government. Religious charities are far less likely than their secular counterparts to receive government funds, but government funding of religious charities is, nevertheless, extensive. . . . Beyond local churches are large national organizations with sectarian affiliations, such as Catholic Charities, the Jewish Federations, Lutheran Social Services, and the Salvation Army. Those organizations have been recipients of public funds for many years and have often set up separate nonsectarian enterprises for their charitable works. Government grants provide two-thirds of the funding for Catholic Charities USA, and the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services receives 75 percent of its funding from the government. . . .
From the New Deal of the 1930s to the Great Society of the 1960s and beyond, the federal governmentÃâ¢s involvement in social welfare increased dramatically. Opportunities for faith-based charities to receive government funding increased correspondingly, especially after the Johnson and Nixon administrations began widespread funding of community organizations in the 1960s. Still, government agencies struggled to reconcile funding of faith-based programs with concerns about church-state separation. . . .
Regardless of how First Amendment questions are ultimately decided, there are ample reasons to question the wisdom of Charitable Choice [legislation]. Indeed, while most discussions of the separation of church and state see it as a way to protect government from religion, Yale law professor Steven Carter notes, "It also protects religion from government." Government standards and excessive regulation intended to ensure accountability and quality care inevitably come attached to government grants and contracts. . . .
Stephen Burger [executive director of the International Union of Gospel Missions] and others believe that the burden will be on charities to prove that the funds they receive are being correctly used. The Charitable Choice legislation contains provisions requiring charities that receive funds to submit to government audits. As a result, the government will have the right to snoop through a churchÃâ¢s books. Unfortunately, as Melissa Rogers of the American Baptist Convention notes, the regulatory language of the statute is "just the tip of the regulatory iceberg." It has generally been understood that acceptance of government funds subjects an organization to a wide range of federal regulations, chief among them federal civil rights laws. . . .
Richard Hammar, author of Pastor, Church and Law, suggests that "in most cases, church programs and activities are conducted in the church facility itself, not in a geographically separate facility. In such cases, [government regulation] will apply to the entire church and all of its programs and activities." The problem is not with a prohibition on discrimination (although if anti-discrimination language is extended to such areas as sexual orientation and religion, conflicts with church doctrine could very likely occur) but with the extensive compliance costs. . . .
Even charities that have the best of intentions will be tempted to subtly shift the emphasis of their missions to comply with the grant criteria. Some faith-based charities may become increasingly secular in orientation; others may simply adopt new missions and services that distract from the churchÃâ¢s original goal. It is one thing for a church to open a soup kitchen because its congregation feels God has called on them to do so. It is another to open that kitchen because someone dangles grant money in front of you. The first of those two forms of mission creep, secularization, poses the clearest and most obvious threat to the nature of faith-based charities. Facing the threat of litigation or the loss of federal funding if they violate the First Amendment, many charities choose to err on the side of caution, virtually eliminating any religious component from their services. . . .
Joe Loconte, of the Heritage Foundation, relates how the St. Francis House, a homeless shelter in Boston, once staffed largely by Franciscan brothers and nuns, now avoids hiring "overtly religious people." The St. Francis House receives 52 percent of its budget from state contracts. But why should faith-based charities eschew proselytizing and explicitly religious functions? There is a reason for the "faith" in "faith-based charities." Those organizations believe that helping people requires more than simply food or a bed. It requires addressing deeper spiritual needs. It is, ultimately, about God. Yet, in the end, BushÃâ¢s proposal may transform faith-based charities from institutions that change peopleÃâ¢s lives into mere providers of services. . . .
There is an even more profound threat to the identity and mission of faith-based charities. If the history of welfare teaches us anything, it is that government money is as addictive as any narcotic. "It becomes almost like heroin," says Ed Gotgart, president of the Massachusetts Association of Nonprofit Schools and Colleges. "You build your program around the assumption that you canÃâ¢t survive without government money."
Ironically, given that many private charities are dedicated to fighting dependence on welfare, government funding may quickly make the charities themselves dependent. Lobbying for, securing, and retaining funding can quickly become an organizationÃâ¢s top priority. As the Salvation ArmyÃâ¢s Jacquelin Triston says, "Most everyone is fighting for every penny they can get to run whatever program they have."
Already many of our largest charities receive more money from the government than from private donations and maintain large professional lobbying organizations in Washington. One newspaper described those organizations as "transformed from charitable groups run essentially on private donations into government vendors--big businesses wielding jobs and amassing clout to further their own agendas." . . .
Private charities may even find that fewer people contribute voluntarily. If people come to believe that government will provide funding, they may decide that there is less need for their contributions. That will result in the loss not only of money but of the human quality of charity. As Robert Thompson of the University of Pennsylvania noted a century ago, using government money for charitable purposes is a "rough contrivance to lift from the social conscience a burden that should not be either lifted or lightened in any way." The end result will be the substitution of coercive government tax financing for compassion- based voluntary giving. That will mean the end of "charity" as we know it.
2003-04-10 02:22 | User Profile
Government grants provide two-thirds of the funding for Catholic Charities USA, and the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services receives 75 percent of its funding from the government. . . .
Notice that the latter organization, representing a group that howls shrilly ââ¬ÅSEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATEââ¬â¢Ã¢â¬â¢ at the sight of a creche, gets substantially more government [taxpayer] funding.
2003-04-10 04:44 | User Profile
Go after the Ford Foundation first. The tax-exempt think tanks are worse than the churches, and they haven't the excuse of doing good work of any kind at all.
Better yet, dump exemptions for the foundations and churches together. Let them help pay for the mess they've helped make.