Guess who's the latest dirtbag to pander to the religious right and test the limits. Barack Obama.
From the AP:
Reaching out to religious voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for expanding President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — supported some ability to hire and fire based on faith.
Not only does Obama want to continue a failed Bush administration policy, he wants to throw more money at.
Obama does not support requiring religious tests for recipients of aid nor using federal money to proselytize, according to a campaign fact sheet. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.
Sounds somewhat reasonable at first glance, no? But can any charity with a religious affiliation really avoid proselytizing? The people who work in these charities are almost all ardently invested in their faith. Can you really prevent them from attempting to recruit those they're helping?
One of the major problems with Bush's support of faith-based initiatives is that a lot of federal money gets wasted on these charities' overhead costs. The churches take their rake, essentially. Additionally, it is difficult for the government to control where the money goes. Not only is it counterproductive to try to police these charities' spending, it's damned near impossible.
Obama proposes to elevate the program to a "moral center" of his administration, by renaming it the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and changing training from occasional huge conferences to empowering larger religious charities to mentor smaller ones in their communities.
Moral center. Great. Give my tax dollars away to preachy douchebags with high overhead costs and call it a moral center.
I'm fine with faith-based charities. I think they do great work, and it's awesome that people support them. But I don't want my government forcing me to pay into whatever agendas they might have. That should be my choice.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Notes from the Right-Wing: Same as the Old Boss
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9 responses:
i'm not sure how i feel about this. i don't want to be one of those idealist progressive wonks to slam obama the second he does something i don't like...and moreover, i don't even know whether i like this in theory or not. however, this does very much jive with his community activist history and grassroots campaign style. it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
i'm curious - do you have statistics to back up your claims? i'm not disagreeing with you, but they're fairly unsubstantiated in my eyes until i see the numbers.
What's unsubstantiated? I didn't argue anything that can be shown statistically, except for the high overhead costs thing.
The fact that there are no readily available statistics on that particular item (as well as others) is indicative of one of the programs largest flaws: a lack of transparency. If you can find any documentation on exactly where the money goes, let me know, because I haven't been able to.
yeah, that was mostly aimed toward the 'overhead' part, though i don't even know enough about it to call it a "failed" bush administration policy.
One subset of the Faith-based Initiaitive Lists some documentation here:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ccf/about_ccf/history_funding.html
Looking at the list of fundees, I get the sense that a lot of them have a high overhead and a payroll I wouldn't be comfortable with. That's just me.
To call it a "failed" policy might be too harsh. But I can tell you this: it has been a costly, sloppy, and largely unproductive policy. Again, my opinion, but I think a lot of people agree with me. A list of spending and distribution on a state-by-state basis can be found here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/final_report_2007.pdf
clearly there's a lot of money being spent on this. i'm not even sure how results and effectiveness would be measured, but i'm still not ready to proclaim it dead. the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
regarding proselytizing - i don't worry too much about religious organizations proselytizing when they're recipients of federal funds. its not that i don't think they will proselytize, i just don't care as long as every voice is heard.
that being said, i do agree in principle that giving them federal funds only encourages the typical congressional mindset of throwing money at problems. federal funding for community programs, nonprofits, etc, won't necessarily fix some of the problems of our cities. federal encouragement of such programs in non-monetary ways could be equally beneficial, but i'm not sure what those non-monetary ways would be.
Your inability to represent faith-based organizations as anything but an institution trying to swindle you out of your hard-earned tax money is atheist/agnostic zealotry.
You cannot expect to put forth opinions that deny all other facts except those that support your own views and not have multiple people on this board call you out for it. Neither can any poster. That is the nature of our beast here.
However, as it is the Fourth of July, I will ask you to respect your fellow countryman's right to freedom of religion, and also respect the fact that many of the citizens of the United States use religion as a means of establishing bonds of community, teaching their children morality and giving themselves the hope of anything other than abysmal cynicism about the meaning of their lives.
While you may not feel the need to ascribe to any one religion, many people do. These people also get a vote, and their voices and opinions matter just at much as yours.
Barack Obama is not running for governor of California. He's certainly not running for the office of president of Joeverkill.
He is to be the next President of our United States of America. As such, he has the blessing and burden of representing one of the most diverse (and sadly divided) countries in the history of the world.
Whenever he does something you don't agree with, I don't mind you disagreeing. But you must understand that I'll be right there to keep you honest in your takes on things, just as I would expect and appreciate you doing the same for me.
Sorry Mr. Murder, but I believe in the separation of church and state. I think that maxim was intended to keep the government out of church as much as it was intended to keep church out of the government.
The U.S. government is not intended to act as a collection and distribution agency for private charities. If you're in favor of it acting in that capacity, that's fine, but I disagree. I think the taxpayers deserve to know where their money's going, and disbursing it to thousands of private charities is a great way to avoid revealing that.
That itself is certainly fine, and as valid an opinion as absolutely any other.
However, you cannot ask "Can any charity with a religious affiliation really avoid proselytizing?" and pretend the answer to that to that question is a resounding "no."
The fact of that matter is it's quite possible for a charity with a religious affiliation to perform a completely secular charitable task and employ many who don't share the faith. If you need an example, I would ask that you look no further than the Salvation Army.
Your distrust of any and all religion is, I will say again, zealotry. You are perfectly within your rights to say that you simply do not support any bill or program that you feel infringes upon separation of church and state. However, do not cite among your reasons for doing so the obviously insidious and untrustworthy nature of all religion in America.
Such an accusation is as bigoted as it is completely ignorant.
Mr. Murder,
Never did I call religion "insidious" or "untrustworthy" in this particular post. I'm saying that church and state should remain separate. I'm not trying to make this a qualitative argument about religion's virtues or lack thereof. Churches do not pay taxes because this country's government is supposed to keep out of the affairs of churches, and vice versa.
In response to your argument that charity does not necessitate proselytization, I would argue that charity is in itself a form of proselytization. No matter how well-intentioned that charity is, it has an ingratiating effect. Again, I laud the work of charities (the non-corrupt ones anyhow), but I don't think the government should force taxpayers to support them financially.
Additionally, I'm against the government distributing taxpayer dollars to any private charity, religious or otherwise. Again, it's a transparency issue. I'm against welfare of all kinds, and supporting "Faith-Based Initiatives" is just another form of that.
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