The White House has issued a report that does a fair amount to document
what many observers have noted: that federal officials in charge of
government grant programs often go too far – well beyond what is actually
required by law or desired by Congress – in restricting involvement in
grant competition by religious groups. The report, mandated by an
executive order President Bush signed during his second week in office, is
obviously designed in part to demonstrate a need for new legislation to
encourage more participation by “faith-based” charities in the government
grant process. But it might also suggest that a different approach would
be more desirable.
The report, titled “Unlevel Playing Field,” makes a number of good points
about what amounts to a subtle (and often not so subtle) bias against
religiously-oriented charitable organizations that might think about
seeking government grants for their work.
The laws, as passed by Congress,
and the Constitution, as interpreted by the courts, don’t actually require
Head Start centers, for example, to remove religious signs from the walls,
but bureaucratic edicts sometimes do. The laws don’t require that
organizations deemed “primarily religious” be barred from participation in
federally-funded community development programs, but some of the
regulations written in the aftermath of laws effectively do just that.
“It is not Congress, but these overly restrictive agency rules that are
repressive, restrictive and which actively undermine the established civil
rights of these groups,” the report contends. “Such excessive restrictions
unnecessarily and improperly limit the participation of faith-based
organizations that have profound contributions to make in civil society’s
efforts to serve the needy.”
The report is based on data from and preliminary studies of institutional
barriers to participation by religious organizations at five agencies –
Health and Human Services, Education, Labor, Justice and Housing and Urban
Development. It concludes that federal agencies have a “widespread bias”
against religious groups, either excluding them automatically from grant
programs or unfairly requiring them to eliminate religious activity to get
money. Some agencies, it says, put religious groups into two broad
categories: “too religious” and “secular enough.”
Even though Congress passed “charitable choice” laws signed by President
Clinton that theoretically open most government welfare, drug treatment
and community development programs to religious groups, federal officials
have in practice largely ignored the laws. It is hard to measure just how
much federal money now goes to religious groups in the wake of what was
supposed to be a new regime, but what evidence is available suggests that
it is very little. In part, it’s because many choose not to apply,
figuring they’ll be forced to downplay or even strip away their religious
character.
It is likely that most of what the report contains is true enough. It is
less clear, however, that the solution is to pass a new law that tells
federal grant-making agencies “we really mean it this time” and exert
pressure to send more of the taxpayers’ money to religious organizations.
Getting religious organizations more firmly enmeshed in government’s often
ineffective efforts to solve social problems might yield some short-term
benefits and even a few success stories. Over the long haul, however, it
is more likely to make religious organizations more bureaucratic, less
effective and less religious than they are now, while yielding few
positive benefits in terms of long-run help for people who need it. The
dynamics of government operation and the institutional incentives the
agencies operate under will simply be too strong.
I don’t doubt that many of those who support the Bush initiative are
well-meaning and sincere. It is certainly true that some faith-based
programs, from a number of initiatives run by Chuck Colson’s Prison
Fellowship to numerous drug rehabilitation or addiction programs with a
faith-oriented component have been more effective than similar government
programs. And most philanthropic programs can use more money and are
inclined to raise it from whatever source they believe they can find
without compromising their basic mission too much.
But although utterly conclusive studies don’t seem to be available, it’s
worth considering the likelihood that many faith-based charitable programs
are more effective than government programs precisely because they are not
sponsored or funded by the government. Organizations impelled by religious
impulses and funded by voluntary contributions are usually better
motivated to achieve actual results rather than simply delivering
acceptable accounting reports than are government agencies.
Perhaps we can make a distinction the White House report fudges or fails
to understand. The report says that agency restrictions are undesirable
because “faith-based organizations … have profound contributions to make
in civil society’s efforts to serve the needy.”
Just what is “civil society?” The report’s words imply that government
welfare programs embody and are the essences of civil society in its most
philanthropic and attractive mode. But that is an essentially statist
understanding that equates the state with civil society. It’s a shame that
a Republican administration would seem to embrace that essentially statist
view, especially when recent history, especially in Eastern and central
Europe, has seen a fascinating recovery of the concept of civil society as
understood more traditionally, offering hope that the concept adapted to
modern conditions might yield a brighter future.
Under communism and other totalitarian regimes, the rulers assumed (and
taught in schools and brainwashing organizations, backed up by prison
camps and firing squads) that the state was the same as society, and that
the interests of the state/society were paramount, especially over the
selfish interests or desires of mere individuals. As resistance to
communism grew, in the 1970s and 1980s, numerous intellectuals came to
understand and explain that this concept undermined the healthy concept of
civil society — seen as the intricate and almost unimaginably complex set
of relationships and activities that take place through voluntary
interaction, from sports and social clubs to large-scale philanthropic
activities.
The key characteristic of a genuinely civil society is that it is
voluntary in character. This doesn’t mean that organizations from Cub
Scouts to bridge clubs will not have rules for their members, but people
are free to join or not to join, to participate or not to participate. The
voluntary character of civil society means that organizations are likely
to adjust their rules and activities fairly constantly, adapting to the
preferences and desires of individual people who seek outlets for their
creativity, generosity or desire to fill leisure time with significance.
The state, however, is based on coercion. Government makes rules backed up
by guns and prisons, and finances its activities by taxes taken by force
from (usually) unwilling “donors.” As American essayist Albert Jay Nock
explained in the 1930s (I think his classic “Our Enemy the State” is still
available from Laissez-Faire Books), the state, the regime based on the
use of force, is the enemy of civil society. That doesn’t mean that
government employees sit around in conspiratorial huddles dreaming up ways
to subvert civil society. But the institutional character of state
agencies mean that as they gain power civil society loses power.
The ideal toward which real friends of liberty should be striving, then,
is to have more activities, most decidedly including charitable,
philanthropic and “self-improving” activities done by civil society,
through voluntary means, and less and less done by the coercive state.
Private and religious-based charitable activities should replace
government programs, not become part of them.
He who takes the King’s shilling becomes the King’s man. He who pays the
piper calls the tune. Giving government money to faith-based organizations
– even if the program starts out with strict rules to the effect that
grants will not be used to minimize or strip away overtly religious
activities – will make them vassals of government. The character that
makes them so effective will eventually be vitiated.
A tax credit program, one that gives a direct tax credit to taxpayers who
make contributions to charitable and other organizations, would involve
less entanglement by the state in the affairs of the organizations. It
would also allow individual taxpayers to decide which organizations will
get their support rather than government bureaucrats, which would give
them a strong incentive to pay attention to whether their contributions
are being used effectively or frittered away.
Opening up the taxpayers’ coffers to grant applications from religious
organizations sounds constructive, and I don’t doubt that many who support
the idea sincerely believe it would transform the programs and make them
more effective. But it is more likely to make religious organizations more
bureaucratic, more dependent on government and less effective. The
Bushies’ motives may be good, but their proposals are profoundly
wrong-headed.
The 2 things Trump can do to make himself the GOAT president
Wayne Allyn Root