The Truth About Charitable Choice

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 26, 2001 | by Catherine Edwards

Officials from the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives set the record straight about how charitable organizations will use federal money for social services.

There've been so many misconceptions about this office," sighs Don Willett, the director of law and policy for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) as he slides into his chair behind a round oak table in the Old Executive Office Building in Washington. The snow is piled up outside the tall windows of the 19th-century office building, but inside the atmosphere is warm and bustling as OFBCI staff are hard at work to promote a surge of community service and volunteerism across America.

But as Willett and colleague Don Ebberly acknowledge, they have their work cut out for them. In late January, President Bush announced creation of the OFBCI to oversee the flow of federal money to faith-based and civic charitable organizations, assist the poor with social services and clear bureaucratic red tape that prevents such groups from doing their work. He also directed that a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives be created within each of five executive-branch agencies (the departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, Housing and Urban Development and Education).

The OFBCI officially opened on Feb. 20; the executive-branch agency offices were to be up and running by mid-March. Willet worked on these issues for Bush when he was governor of Texas; Ebberly has joined the staff to oversee administration after 12 years in the nonprofit sector.

The initiative drew fire from a broad range of ideologues. The left was not pleased, of course. But on the same day the new office opened, across town at the libertarian Cato Institute, a panel of experts debated the question, "Government Funding of Faith-Based Initiatives: Compassionate Conservatism or Corrupting Charity?"

"We would like to emphasize that citizens should take responsibility for their neighborhoods, step forward and both contribute to and participate in works of compassion and mercy," Ebberly tells Insight. "I think some of this criticism that we are corrupting charity is a bit misguided and does not take into account that county governments have been contracting with faith-based groups to provide social services since the early 19th century."

Willett adds, "It is a huge misperception that this office will be involved in grant-giving or picking and choosing winners based on religion. We are to ensure that, in compliance with the law, federal funding is not inhibited to faith-based groups, but we assuredly do not have a large stash of money to hand out to favored religious groups."

Willett insists the initiative has nothing to do with funding sectarian worship but is about funding social services and implementing the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. He tells Insight, "The government cannot favor one religion over another but can ensure that there is a level playing field for all applicants, based on the objective outcomes and merits of the program."

Nevertheless, criticism persists. Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, says people will be less likely to contribute to charitable groups that get money from the government and that these charities will become just so many more hogs at the trough of government largesse. And Melissa Rogers of the Religious Liberties Council of the Baptist Joint Convention warns of "a risk of harnessing religion for government ends."

Ebberly downplays the critique. "We are going to be spending a lot of taxpayer dollars on social programs in America," he says. "Take your pick: either through traditional distant bureaucratic systems or small-scale loving and caring services. I could argue that the effect will be to reduce government and its cost by taking dead aim at bringing change. Traditional programs do not have the capacity to transform lives and don't even pretend to promise that result. Faith-based programs do and thereby engage in serious prevention that will have the result of reducing the need for costly governmental spending."

Under pressure from the Republican Congress, President Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act with its charitable-choice provision in 1996. But he was passive about implementation. Willett tells Insight that his boss is interested in action and results and that, by implementing the law, Bush hopes to reduce poverty.

The OFBCI has been working around the clock to implement the president's directive. The staff is small, with no more than 10 there right now. As Insight reported last month, University of Pennsylvania professor John J. DiIulio Jr. was tapped to head the OFBCI (see "Bush Embraces Charitable Choice," Feb. 26). Willett will handle law and policy for the office. Stanley Carlson Thies, formerly the director of social-policy studies at the Center for Public Justice, a nonprofit organization in Annapolis, Md., will track the implementation and impact of the charitable-choice provision of the 1996 welfare-reform law.