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ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groupsThe president's religious patronage system is now pouring more than $2 billion in federal funding into church- affiliated organizations around the country annually With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The other item that didn't get any State of the Union play is a project that was once envisioned to be the centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda: his faith-based initiative. As Joseph Bottum, editor of the conservative publication First Things -- "The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life" -- pointed out, Bush "didn't mention faith-based initiatives, which...[he] once claimed would be his great legacy." The president's faith-based initiative is facing several tough court battles:
Since January 2001, when the president proudly issued executive orders that brought the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives into being, the faith-based initiative was touted as a major priority for the Bush Administration. After years of trying to sell different aspects of his faith-based initiative during State of the Union addresses, it must have been disappointing to both religious groups that are currently receiving government grants and those interested in grabbing a piece of the pie to have been left out of Bush's comments. However, despite the above-mentioned and other legal actions by civil liberties groups challenging various aspects of the faith-based initiative, David Kuo's unsparing account of the politicization of the initiative in his bestselling book "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," and the changes at the helm of the White House Office, the president's faith-based is still managing to chug along. Faith-based initiative still servicing religious groupsAccording to a comprehensive report by the National Journal's Paul Singer and Brian Friel, the faith-based initiative is alive, and, while not in need of life support, is not doing quite as well as the administration might have hoped by year six. "Under the public radar, federal, state, and local governments are funding, training, and even helping to create religious social service organizations," the National Journal reported in early January. According to Singer and Friel, "thousands of small faith-based organizations nationwide ... are using taxpayer dollars to provide social services." While "the government has worked with religious charities for generations," it has been both the Welfare Reform bill in 1996 and the Bush Administration's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives that "have spawned a new era of cooperation." A "charitable choice" provision, allowing states to work with faith-based and community charities in providing certain services to the poor, was inserted into the Welfare Reform Act, by former then Republican Senator (and President Bush's first Attorney General) John Ashcroft -- and signed by President Bill Clinton. Over the six years of existence, in lieu of comprehensive faith-based legislation passed by Congress, the president has taken to using executive orders to move things forward. "More than $2 billion in federal funding -- and an un-tallied but growing amount of state and local support -- is pouring into church-affiliated organizations around the country annually." Singer and Friel report. "In some cases, moreover, the government is essentially creating faith-based organizations to provide such value-laden services as 'healthy marriages' counseling and abstinence education." Over the past decade, and especially during the past five years, federal, state, and local governments have embarked on a broad campaign to recruit, train, and assist religious charities -- primarily Christian, but also a smattering of Jewish, Muslim, and others -- to provide a broad array of social services, from mentoring the children of prisoners to guiding the unemployed through job training. Government officials are also using a variety of methods to professionalize and stabilize the thousands of small, local sectarian charities that operate across the country. Taxpayers sponsor conferences to teach church-affiliated groups how to write grant applications, and help them train volunteers, buy vehicles, set up offices, and navigate the tax code. The government even teaches church leaders how to create tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations so that they can raise money more easily. Officials are issuing newsletters to alert the faithful of federal and private foundation grant opportunities. The federal government, in particular, is building a national network of nonprofit "intermediary" organizations that foster faith-based and community organizations, and serve as their conduit for getting government money. "For faith groups interested in government partnerships, and for everyone interested in the issues of church and state, these are heady times," Richard Nathan, director of the Albany, N.Y.-based Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, said at a December 5 conference in Washington. "Whether and where the lines can be drawn to separate religious activity from that which can be supported by public funds is complicated, subtle, and very much, especially right now -- very much in flux." One of David Kuo's criticisms of the White House's faith-based initiative was that it didn't follow through on its promise to provide $8 billion to faith-based organizations. The White House, however, claims that "faith-based organizations can now compete for about $20 billion a year in federally managed programs, and another $55 billion or so in programs managed by state and local governments," according to Singer and Friel. The Department of Health and Human Services' Compassion Capital Fund -- which has a $50 million annual budget -- has given "grants of up to $2.5 million a year to a few dozen 'intermediary organizations,' which in turn give smaller grants to faith-based and community groups to help them grow," Singer and Friel reported. "HHS also provides up to $50,000 directly to these groups to help them train volunteers, build fundraising operations, improve management systems, and publicize their services. According to Hein, from 2003 to 2005, the number of grants to faith-based groups from five departments -- Education, HHS, HUD, Justice and Labor -- jumped a total of 38 percent." In addition, AmeriCorps and its parent agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service, "send volunteers to help faith-based and community organizations do things like learn better accounting techniques or create lists of volunteers," Singer and Friel pointed out. "The corporation, which is an independent federal agency, estimates that in 2005, it awarded nearly $81 million, or 13 percent of its competitive grant funds, to faith-based organizations, up from $70.5 million the year before." Greg Morris, director of HHS's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, told the National Journal that "direct federal grants to faith-based organizations represent 'a relatively small piece of federal dollars that go out.'" He noted that "The biggest piece of the pie is those formula block grants that go out from the federal government to the states, and then there is wide latitude at the state and local level to administrate those funds." According to Singer and Friel, "This is where the initiative can generate the most bang for its buck. For the faith-based centers in the various federal departments, Morris said, 'the focus going forward is on targeting the administrators of those programs at the state and local level,' to make sure that they are not shutting faith-based organizations out of competition for grants." "Amid all of the activity," Singer and Friel wrote, "a basic question has never been fully resolved: What are the limits for what faith-based organizations can do with government money? Government officials emphasize that they teach all tax-dollar recipients that the money can pay only for secular services that are clearly separate from religious activity. But sometimes that line is not so clear." "Among the major issues that federal authorities are still grappling with:"
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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A quiet fifth anniversary for Bush s faith-based initiative
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