DLC New Dem Dispatch: Faith Based Fiasco

Some of you may remember that the original director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, John DiIulio, resigned in frustration at the lack of interest in the subject within the top levels of the administration, granting an interview in which he basically said there was no serious policy apparatus in the White House.

Now a second shoe has dropped. David Kuo, former deputy director of the same office vacated by DiIulio earlier, has penned an article for Beliefnet.com charging that the administration had a "minimal commitment" to the faith-based initiative, particularly in terms of making it a budget priority and of building support across party lines to overcome the reflexive opposition of some Congressional Democrats.

Kuo's charge is true with respect to both the most and least controversial elements of Bush's original faith-based initiative. The former is the idea of letting faith-based organizations receive federal grants without having to comply with the usual rules prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs among the staff and beneficiaries of publicly-financed social efforts. Many Democrats, and some Republicans, legitimately oppose that idea, and the administration has done little or nothing to compromise on the issue, preferring to charge that "liberals" want to discriminate against people of faith. The far less controversial proposal was the original faith-based initiative's centerpiece: allowing a charitable contribution deduction for taxpayers who don't itemize deductions. This particular proposal has been championed in Congress by Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Rick Santorum (R-PA).

Yet the administration has hardly lifted a finger to support that idea. ... In an administration allegedly devoted to broad-based "tax relief" and to support for the civic sector in addressing social problems, this inaction, now bordering on contempt, is very telling. As DiIulio charged, it's beginning to look like the whole faith-based initiative is just campaign fodder, and a convenient excuse for cutting or scrapping public-sector programs aimed at addressing national challenges like poverty and homelessness.
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You can see the entire article here. It begs the question: is this the start of real disillusionment with the Whitehouse among faith-focused communities? Or are they too buried in their political mythology to notice how much the Bush Administration is betraying them?

Only time will tell.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

Last year I was attending a church whose pastors and membership were very into the "morals, values, thank God we have a man of faith in office, ain't the faith-based program grand?" mentality. They didn't seem to have much problem with the torture in Iraqi prisons, either. Pretty sad. I quit attending when they designated church funds to pass Ballot Measure 36 (Oregon constitutional amendment banning gay marriage). So I have no idea if these folks are becoming disillusioned with Bush or not. I'm guessing not. Long as he keeps saying the words they want to hear, they'll support him til the bitter end--to them, that's Armageddon, of course, but won't matter since they'll be raptured long before then. Or 7 years before then, I guess. For now, I'm betting money they don't realize how Bush is betraying them. Glad, though, that DiIluio and Kuo are speaking out for truth. Maybe someone will listen.

Tired Old Cynic

Sure, the Falwells, Robertsons, Dobson's got their cut...but the ones running real outreach don't get squat. Only the truely naive could trust the words of these anti-Christians.