Beware the Effects of Government Funds on Charities

To the Editor:

Jennifer Moore and Grant Williams report that Texas Governor and Republican Presidential front-runner George W. Bush has promised to “get more government money to private institutions, especially faith-based groups” if elected President (“Charity: a Campaign Front-Runner,” August 12).

Governor Bush knows from personal experience that religious faith can transform lives, and he rightly applauds groups that use the power of faith to rescue others from poverty and despair. However, the experience of religiously affiliated charities that have taken direct government assistance suggests that mountains of red tape are created when charities are accountable to public officials and must comply with their regulations. Government oversight can undermine a charity’s effectiveness. Worse, it can compromise and undermine a charity’s strong religious commitments.

How does this happen? A religious group that wants government grants must be qualified to receive them; inevitably, this means it must pass public scrutiny. But this invites the government to meddle and the charity to maneuver.

For example, Catholic Charities USA was established in 1910 as a network of Catholic organizations providing such social services as adoption, alcoholism counseling, and aid to Catholic families, immigrants, and the elderly. Today, Catholic Charities receives 64 per cent of its $2.1-billion budget from government sources. Father Fred Kammer, the president of Catholic Charities, has called “advocacy for those in need” — i.e., lobbying for greater social spending — one of the primary religious duties of his group.

The same process can be seen at work in Volunteers of America, which was founded as a religious social-service organization similar to the Salvation Army. Today, it is the 15th-largest U.S. non-profit, with a 1997 budget of $435-million. In 1996, with government funding amounting to 69 per cent of revenues, it moved its headquarters from Louisiana to the Washington area.

The Volunteers of America national office now claims to seek “a more active role in shaping national policies on human-services issues.” Since relocating to the nation’s capital, it has lobbied for increases in the budget of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which supports many of its programs.

In calling for greater public support for faith-based charities, Governor Bush is trying to overturn the agenda of big-government liberalism. Instead of liberalism’s familiar argument that personal improvement depends on the reform of social institutions, the Governor argues that social change requires personal transformation which depends on religious faith.

But as they propose ways to implement his goals, the Governor’s supporters should recall that Catholic Charities and Volunteers of America were once “faith-based.” That they are now only “religiously affiliated” government contractors testifies to the influence of lawmakers who control the public purse.

Terrence Scanlon
President
Capital Research Center
Washington