Senate Should Start Fresh on Crafting Faith Measure

By Pablo Eisenberg

Nonprofit groups that care about the poor should be spending the next few weeks telling members of Congress that the Bush administration’s so-called faith-based initiative is a bad idea and ought to be killed if the Senate takes it up in the near future.

The bill that the House of Representatives passed last month to channel more federal social-service funds to religious groups violates so many of our constitutional and regulatory protections that it makes one wonder how it got so far.

The Baptist Joint Committee characterized the measure as “unnecessary, unhealthy, unconstitutional, and unwise.” It might have added “divisive and dangerous” — divisive because the legislation could pit religious organizations against secular organizations and other religious groups for scarce federal money, and dangerous because it undermines many principles and accountability requirements of nonprofit organizations that are at the heart of our civil society.

Many national and local religious groups have expressed concern that taking government money to provide services for the poor may dampen their prophetic mission. If they are really concerned about that and the nation’s poor, let them use their power and influence to lobby vigorously for greatly increased resources for government programs that serve the needy. Their record over the past decade has been less than sterling.

What they should not do is support the approach that is moving its way through Congress. The legislation passed by the House raises a host of issues that, taken together, constitute a frightening departure from current nonprofit practice — a departure that could cause irreparable harm. Those issues include:

Low accountability. Churches that get direct federal support would not have to disclose the same types of information that are required of charities registered under Section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code.

Churches would be required to audit themselves annually to certify that they had complied with the law, but that does little to ensure accountability. And while religious groups would have to segregate federal money in separate accounts that could be subject to government audits, they could still use government funds earmarked for overhead for religious purposes.

Exacerbating the lack of accountability would be the fact that state and local governments would be given authority to oversee the faith-based groups that received government grants. The system would be hobbled by variable standards, politics, paperwork, and costly bureaucracy. So much for conservatives who want to simplify government.

Danger of discrimination. Religious groups that received federal money could discriminate in the hiring and firing of employees based on religious beliefs and practices. Such groups also would be exempt from state and local antidiscrimination laws.

Churches that have established charitable entities under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code have to abide by civil-rights laws to receive federal funds. Under the legislation, churches that receive government grants directly could deliver social services with staff members picked for their specific religious or ideological beliefs. The clock would be turned back on decades of hard-won civil-rights battles.

Blurring church and state lines. Churches would be encouraged to mix their secular and religious practices. Although the bill states that federal funds should not be spent on proselytizing or other sectarian activities, it also says that churches could retain their autonomy, expressions of religious belief, and the religious art, icons, and other symbols that adorn their spaces. No prohibition would exist against holding prayer meetings and other religious activities just before or after government-supported services are provided, as long as the religious activities were privately financed.

Such practices and a heavy presence of religious symbolism could become tantamount to religious coercion. The onus of objecting to such coercion would be on the person receiving the services, not on the government entity providing the money.

What’s more, governments at all levels would have to decide what religious organizations are appropriate or inappropriate, qualified or not qualified, to deliver social services. The legislation provides no guidance for that costly selection process.

Weakened standards for social services. Religious groups could seek waivers from standards and regulations that apply to secular social-service organizations — protections that ensure that tax dollars are spent effectively and safeguard the health of people receiving services. Such waivers could seriously weaken safety, fire, and health standards, certification requirements, rules that prevent too many people from receiving services from any one provider, and the overall quality of services.

Governments would be given the added responsibility of determining the reasonableness and effect of waiver requests. Officials would come under enormous political pressure to grant waivers to most applicants, creating another bureaucratic nightmare.

Inadequate complaint procedures. Only after people have complained about the services they received would government be required to provide an alternative service within what the bill calls “a reasonable period of time after the date of such objection.” What constitutes a reasonable period of time is not spelled out. And what if no alternative services are available within a reasonable distance from a person’s home? In rural areas, as well as many others, finding alternative services, either secular or religious, is likely to be a problem.

Introduction of vouchers. The bill would establish a voucher program that would give people the option to choose social services provided by either secular or religious groups. Because individuals and not the providers would decide where to spend the public funds, organizations technically would not be bound by the restrictions prohibiting a mix of religious and secular activities. Churches would then be free to include worship and proselytizing as part of delivering services. Blocked in their past efforts to enact vouchers, especially in education, conservative lawmakers would finally get the chance to get vouchers on the books through the back door.

In theory the legislation that the House passed is supposed to give churches and other religious groups an opportunity to compete fairly with secular organizations for federal money for the delivery of social services. In practice, the bill gives churches an enormous advantage. It enables them to avoid the public accountability and reporting requirements demanded of secular organizations. It permits them to waive standards and regulations that secular groups must follow. It allows them to avoid hiring procedures required of their secular counterparts. And it authorizes them to ignore a registration and oversight system to which secular groups must adhere. This is a bill that discriminates not against the churches but against secular organizations.

Support for the legislation was enhanced by its provisions to increase the resources available for charitable contributions, most notably by permitting people who don’t itemize their taxes to deduct gifts of $25 — $50 for married couples, the first year — and up to $100, or $200 for couples, after 10 years. Independent Sector, as well as other national nonprofit umbrella groups, was willing to embrace the bill against the wishes of many of its members in order to pass the nonitemizer provision. That was a trade-off that sacrificed larger concerns and principles for a measure that at best is inconsequential and arguably worse than no bill at all.

When the Senate takes up the Bush faith-based plan, it could best serve the poor and the nonprofit world in general by refusing to pass the House bill and start from scratch on crafting a way to help religious and other charitable groups do more to serve the needs of the destitute.

Pablo Eisenberg is senior fellow at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute and a member of the executive committee of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. He is a regular contributor to these pages. His e-mail address is pseisenberg@erols.com.