<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:23829.wais]
H.R. 1054, AUTHORIZING PRESIDENTIAL VISION: MAKING PERMANENT THE
EFFORTS OF THE FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 1054
TO ESTABLISH THE OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
__________
JUNE 21, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-74
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Brandon Lerch, Professional Staff Member
Malia Holst, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 21, 2005.................................... 1
Text of H.R. 1054................................................ 6
Statement of:
Carlson-Thies, Stanley, director of social policy studies,
Center for Public Justice; David Kuo, former deputy
director, White House Faith-Based and Community Initiative;
and Bobby Polito, former director, Center for Faith-Based
and Community Initiatives, Department of Health and Human
Services................................................... 62
Carlson-Thies, Stanley................................... 62
Kuo, David............................................... 79
Polito, Bobby............................................ 82
Green, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Wisconsin; and Hon. Robert C. Scott, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Virginia........................ 33
Green, Hon. Mark......................................... 33
Scott, Hon. Robert C..................................... 38
Petersmeyer, Gregg, vice chairman, Board of Trustees,
America's Promise; Bob Woodson, president, National Center
for Neighborhood Enterprise; Dennis Griffith, director,
Teen Challenge in southern California; Rabbi David
Saperstein, director, Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism; and Reverend C. Welton Gaddy, president,
Interfaith Alliance........................................ 336
Gaddy, Reverend C. Welton................................ 392
Griffith, Dennis......................................... 363
Petersmeyer, Gregg....................................... 336
Saperstein, Rabbi David.................................. 379
Woodson, Bob............................................. 349
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Carlson-Thies, Stanley, director of social policy studies,
Center for Public Justice, prepared statement of........... 65
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 27
Gaddy, Reverend C. Welton, president, Interfaith Alliance,
prepared statement of...................................... 394
Green, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Wisconsin, prepared statement of........................ 36
Griffith, Dennis, director, Teen Challenge in southern
California, prepared statement of.......................... 366
Owens, Hon. Major R., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York, article dated May 3, 2005............... 18
Petersmeyer, Gregg, vice chairman, Board of Trustees,
America's Promise:
Information concerning public papers of the President.... 422
Prepared statement of.................................... 339
Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of.......... 429
Saperstein, Rabbi David, director, Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism, prepared statement of...................... 382
Scott, Hon. Robert C., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 41
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana:
Information concerning the Points of Light............... 414
Snapshots of Compassion.................................. 89
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Woodson, Bob, president, National Center for Neighborhood
Enterprise, prepared statement of.......................... 353
AUTHORIZING PRESIDENTIAL VISION: MAKING PERMANENT THE EFFORTS OF THE
FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVE
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Gutknecht, Brown-Waite,
Foxx, Cummings, Watson, Owens, Davis and Ruppersberger.
Staff present: J. Marc Wheat, staff director and chief
counsel; Brandon Lerch and Naomi Seiler, professional staff
members; Michelle Gress, counsel; Malia Holst, clerk; Denise
Wilson and Richard Butcher, minority professional staff
members; Cecelia Morton, minority clerk; and Christopher Davis,
minority professional staff member.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good afternoon and thank you all for coming. In particular,
I welcome two distinguished colleagues on our first panel,
Congressman Mark Green of Wisconsin and Congressman Bobby Scott
of Virginia. Sometimes we talk to each other on other issues
other than faith-based but the three of us have been engaging
in this debate for some time and welcome you to this hearing
today to talk about this legislation and in general, the
subject.
We have two additional panels of eminent witnesses
representing hundreds of years of total experience in service
to others. I have no doubt the collective compassion of our
witnesses generates its own electricity.
We have not held a hearing on the provision of community
services since April 2004, but this is the subcommittee's 11th
hearing on the topic. It is also our first legislative hearing.
Congressman Green's proposal to make the White House Office
of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives permanent, H.R. 1054,
The Tools for Community Initiative Act, raises an important
debate that policymakers have confronted for decades. Mr.
Green's bill leads us to ask, how do we organize the executive
branch to promote and extend efficient and effective care to
Americans in their time of need.
As for the White House, itself, it has been at least 15
years since the West Wing dedicated office space to the cause
of grassroots service. President Bush's Faith-Based and
Community Initiative has now been in existence for nearly 4
years. While providing for much political controversy, the
Initiative has also fostered significant advances in the way
government reaches Americans in their time of need.
If the aim of the Federal Government is to efficiently
execute Federal programs, then it follows that these programs
should make great efforts to collaborate with and assist those
who are already so engaged. Most fundamentally, this is the
goal of the Faith-Based Community Initiative.
The President's initiative began in 2001 by documenting
discrimination by Federal grant programs against faith-based
groups. Subsequently, President Bush issued Executive orders to
ensure equal treatment of all grant applicants, regardless of
their religious nature. Three additional Executive Orders No.'s
13198, 13280 and 13342, established 11 offices in the White
House and 10 executive branch agencies in order to realize the
intent of the equal treatment orders. Their work has focused on
cooperation of the Federal bureaucracy, the grant programs
themselves and on communicating these efforts to service
organizations throughout the country.
H.R. 1054 seeks to make the White House Office of Faith-
Based and Community Initiative and its 10 agency offices
permanent. Such a proposal, however, compels us to investigate
the experience of previous White House Administrations and more
simply, what other entities currently exist with similar
missions. Moreover, the subcommittee will examine the successes
and shortcomings of the President's faith-based and community
initiatives to understand what these experiences may tell us
about how far we have come and where we need to go.
The efforts of past Presidents clearly illustrate the Bush
administration's effort to represent a common sense addition to
at least a decade and a half of Presidential vision and
leadership. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush created the
White House Points of Light Office. After 4 years of national
leadership in support of grassroots service organizations,
President Bush passed a four-pillared White House office to
President Bill Clinton. From 1993 to 2001, Clinton consolidated
this office and eventually added AmeriCorps, and sent forth
volunteer citizens to grassroots service organizations his
predecessor had sought to bolster.
At the beginning of President George W. Bush's
administration, establishing a new White House office appears
like a reasonable next step. The White House Faith-Based and
Community Initiative effort adds to previous efforts by trying
to instill fairness in the Government grant system and ensure
the rights of religious services groups.
While this is a logical and necessary step, it has not been
entirely successful. For instance, in the areas of food stamps
issuance and providing drug treatment, groups intended to be
treated equally have ironically been punished. More troubling
perhaps is that many potential programmatic successes have been
blunted because of little or no cooperation from State and
local governments.
As the subcommittee considers the merits of H.R. 1054,
which has been assigned to this subcommittee, Members may
consider additional changes to the law so that Americans in
their time of need receive the greatest possible impact from
the compassion of their neighbors.
Already existing White House offices, the Faith-Based and
Community Initiative, and State and local efforts are
uncoordinated, creating confusion and frustration amongst
America's grassroots services groups. Creating a comprehensive
compassion strategy through executive branch reorganization may
be necessary for the long-term accomplishment of reaching our
fellow Americans in their time of need.
I would ask if any other Members have opening statements?
Congressman Owens, Congresswoman Watson.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder and the text
of H.R. 1054 follow:]
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Mr. Owens. I want to commend the chairman for holding this
hearing and I appreciate the effort that is moving forward to
codify a program that has been in existence now for more than 4
years which has attracted my attention because of the fact that
I was formerly commissioner of a community development agency
in New York which was responsible for the Community Action
Program under the Economic Opportunity Act. The Economic
Opportunity Act had at its center the community action programs
which were designed to reach down into the communities and
allow local community organizations to run programs for the
benefit of the poor constituents.
Large numbers of churches participated in that program.
Large numbers of churches sponsored programs and did them very
well. During the time I was commissioner, we had a program
which had 26 community corporations which had big contracts
with subcontracts under them to other agencies. The total
number of agencies under the umbrella of my agency was about
500 agencies providing programs all the way from recreation and
after school care programs to economic development programs,
programs related to housing development, a whole range of
programs under the Economic Opportunity Act. That knowledge and
whole set-up is part of history but I assure you it is not
lost. It is there in the archives for everyone to see.
I applaud the effort by the Bush administration to reach
down to community groups; they have been starved for a long,
long time. That program was discredited because it didn't have
a proper power base, in my opinion, to keep it going, but it
was a good program nevertheless. For small amounts of money, we
got a return on programs run by local community groups,
including church groups.
Now we have the same thing which has returned in another
form. My great fear here is whereas the Economic Opportunity
Act and all the parts under it were codified, were authorized
by Congress, had a clear set of criteria, clear procedures as
to how you applied, and a fair doctrine in terms of the
distribution of the funds. The distribution started with
identification of the areas in the country that had the highest
poverty rate.
So a poverty area was clearly defined, the indices of
poverty were clearly laid out and within that poverty area,
choices were made by local advisory groups in connection with a
designated community action agency. As I said, my agency was an
agency for New York City. Each one of the 26 areas had a
separate advisory body, a community corporation board that made
the decisions for that local area.
I am saying all this because I think if you are passing out
taxpayers' money, there ought to be a clear criteria, ought to
be a clear set of priorities and my great concern about the
present initiative, and I know there are many other concerns
about the fact that you are using religious groups and giving
them the privilege of selecting their personnel and a number of
other issues which I don't belittle, they are important issues.
I am in favor of the program going forward and letting the
Supreme Court decide the nature of those other issues because I
think it is long over due that we had some kind of program that
returned to offering some kind of resources to local
communities. Those resources ought to be distributed in a fair
and open manner. There ought not be the present situation where
it is generally felt in my community and large numbers of
churches want to know what can they do to become a part of it
and want to know, do you have to be a Republican, do you have
to be one of the favored few, do you have to be smiled upon by
certain political operatives. It is not clear what the answers
are because the way the money has been distributed up to now,
there has been no criteria.
The information about the program was rather scant for the
first 3 years, I think. Lots of written information is
available now, you can get information on the Web site now, but
2 or 3 years ago, I couldn't get the same information. It was
all passed around in sort of closed circles. Large amounts of
money were distributed, $2 billion to $3 billion was
distributed without codification of the kind this bill
proposes. It raises many issues.
There was an article in the New York Times that I think
brings it home and with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would
like to enter this article in the record for all who would like
to understand my concerns. This is an article that appeared in
the New York Times on May 3, 2005 and talked about ``Hispanic
Group Thrives on Faith and Federal Aid'' and focused on one
particular group but described how the whole program works.
At one point, this paragraph stuck out in my mind and I
will close with this paragraph. It said, ``A few months before
last November's election, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao took Mr.
Cortes' advice, flying to Florida to give his organization $2.8
million for a youth employment program. In 2003, when the group
began a housing initiative, a kick-off event attracted Mel
Martinez, who at that time was the Federal Housing Secretary,
who is running for Senator in Florida, and a $300,000 contract
followed to counsel homebuyers.
``The current issue of Nueva Esperanza's newsletter shows
Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the Majority
Leader, handing over a $500,000 check from his charitable
foundation for the group's work on preventing AIDS.'' That last
sentence relates to a charitable contribution, it was not
taxpayers' money.
The other sums that were mentioned were taxpayers' money.
What criteria was used? How do you qualify? Do you compete with
other people and why did it all come just before the election?
These are the kinds of questions I think we ought to ask and
answer.
As we go forward to provide a program which I think is very
much needed, let us clean it up and make certain it is a
program where the taxpayers' funds are made available on equal
footing for everyone and that they are targeted to priority
areas where you have the greatest need.
I ask unanimous consent to put this article into the
record, New York Times, May 3, 2005.
Mr. Souder. I have unanimous consent that we will include
that.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding
this hearing. I want to say from the very outset, that I am the
son of two preachers, my mother and father, so these comments
are made with a full appreciation for church. I am also one
who, as a lawyer and before coming to the Congress, represented
a lot of churches.
Today we begin the second hearing on faith-based program
activity, specifically on H.R. 1054, legislation introduced by
Representative Green to establish the Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives in the Executive Office of the President.
The first hearing on H.R. 1054 was held last Tuesday, June 14
before the Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census.
H.R. 1054 would make permanent the Faith-Based Office
within the White House and 10 agency offices. It would also
express a sense of the Congress regarding the rules which
should guide participation of faith-based organizations in
Federal social service programs.
Let me be very clear. I do not object to the Federal
Government finding ways to strengthen ties to faith-based
organizations. I get very upset when this discussion comes up
and some folk try to make it appear that there are Members of
Congress that actually have something against faith-based
organizations doing public type work. Nothing could be further
from the truth. I would imagine if you polled the Congress,
probably 99 percent of us now support the work that faith-based
organizations have done and support them as long as the
taxpayer dollar is being spent effectively and efficiently, and
that those dollars are not used to discriminate against folks.
Faith-based, non-profit and community-based organizations
have long been involved in addressing the needs of families,
individuals and communities. Churches and other faith-based
organizations in my congressional district continue to answer
the call of those in distress, in need of a place to rest and a
refuge away from drugs, addictions and other ills.
To support such efforts, we should encourage the good works
of good people to help those who cannot help themselves. While
encouraging good works, we need to carefully scrutinize and
review services provided by faith-based organizations. We need
to know the extent of services provided; we need to know who is
and who is not being served; and we need to know if the
services work, again, going back to effectiveness and
efficiency.
Are they successful? The success of these programs remains
an important issue to be determined. In September 2002, the
Government Accountability Office released a report that I
requested on charitable choice. The report found there is no
data to support the opinion that faith-based organizations
service providers perform as well as or better than others. It
is 2005 and we still have no way to measure success of a faith-
based program.
I also have serious concerns regarding the administration's
approach to faith-based initiatives. In no uncertain terms, I
object to the use of Federal funds to support religious
discrimination. Religious discrimination in hiring for programs
funded by the Federal Government is simply wrong.
It is equally objectionable for religious organizations to
take Federal money, my money, my constituents' tax dollars, and
turn away people because they do not subscribe to a particular
religion or faith. I object to the entities receiving Federal
funds if they cannot separate their religious activities from
their secular activities or services. I object to the use of
Federal funds to proselytize. I object to relaxing State
licensing and certification standards for substance abuse
counselors.
The poorest and least served deserve to receive the best
treatment available in their time of need. They must not be
used as guinea pigs by unlicensed professionals or subject to
unproven methods. That is not to say that faith-based programs
do not work. It is just that they should be to standards and we
must be able to measure them.
Finally, I would object to diverting scarce funding from
established public and non-profit organizations. Just recently,
there was a conference of ministers where as we debated and
were concerned, Mr. Chairman, about No Child Left Behind not
having enough money, there comes a minister who was in charge
of an organization telling preachers how they can get No Child
Left Behind money. He has a business apparently doing that. I
have said it before and I will say it again, this diversion
will only serve to undermine current programs and create a
smokescreen by seeming to do more with less.
I am also concerned that as we take dollars and give them
to faith-based organizations, are we then taking $10 or more
away for things that are done the way they have been done in
the past, in other words, by traditional organizations.
Taking away scarce Federal resources from current providers
is a very real problem that can be devastating. This was
recently highlighted in an article which appeared in the May
17, 2005 edition of the Washington Post entitled, ``Two Fronts
in the War on Poverty: Bush seeks more aid for church groups;
others face uncertainty.'' The paper read as follows: ``Here in
Baltimore,'' and by the way, in my district around the corner
from my house, a city noted for its unpretentious charm but
also its deep social problems, ``the Federal shift away from
traditional community development programs has generated
widespread uncertainty. While the anti-poverty groups are
confronted with an uncertain future, church-based organizations
that often provide similar services but often have less
experience are flourishing.''
Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank you again for holding this
hearing. We need continued examination of the President's
approach to faith-based initiatives and more specifically,
whether we really need to establish a permanent Faith-Based
Office within the Executive Office of the President.
With that said, we need to determine what works and find
ways to better assess the participation of faith-based
organizations in Federal social service programs. The American
people have entrusted us in good faith to be responsible
stewards with their hard-earned tax dollars. This demands that
federally supported social programs, whether faith-based or
secular in their orientation, be effective and efficient in
carrying out their mission.
In the midst of that examination, let us also not forget
our obligation to the principles of religious tolerance and
non-discrimination. The struggle against discrimination and
religious intolerance unfortunately remains with us. Even in
this new century so rich with opportunity to right the wrongs
of our past, we must ensure that H.R. 1054 is not a step in the
wrong direction.
I want to take a moment to thank Mr. Scott for addressing
this issue so many times all over the country and just trying
to make sure that all are clear as to what these faith-based
initiatives really mean.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Any other Member wishing to make an opening
statement? Congresswoman Watson.
Ms. Watson. I want to add my thanks to those of the others
for the Chair bringing this most timely issue up for a
committee hearing.
I, like my colleagues, think that services in the community
ought to be provided through those who provide them best and
who show results. Believe me, in a district like mine, I have
thousands of churches that do have programs, Head Start
programs, after school programs, rehab programs, etc. I think
they are entitled to Federal funds as well.
Here is where I draw the line. I feel that unless we very
clearly state in the provisions and the regulations state that
any group receiving Federal funds through a faith-based and
community initiative cannot discriminate as far as color,
creed, religion or sexuality. I believe if we are using public
dollars, those are dollars from taxpayers, that we have to make
it very clear because why should not someone who does not
believe in religion but has a tremendous need be restricted
from going in to a program if it is funded by Federal dollars.
These are issues we have to think about, reflect on and come up
with a fair policy.
I have another concern too. That is, I know that there is
going to be proselytizing on the side. You walk into a facility
and it is a Southern Baptist, so on and so forth, why would
they not want to encourage the young people to take a serious
look at their preachings? I am a Catholic. I am the
granddaughter of someone who was in the convent for 13 years.
Obviously, she came out. [Laughter.]
They do an excellent job of educating children. My
grandmother did that in the home. There is never a time there
is not a relationship to their religious principles, dogmas and
beliefs.
So we have to analyze, we have to take an in-depth look at
what we put into law, what policies we make when it comes to
faith-based funding for those programs out there that are so
direly needed.
I am very appreciative, Mr. Chair, that we have this
opportunity to hear from our presenters, to raise the questions
and to discuss this program.
Thank you, so much.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. Gutknecht. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I apologize, I was not going to say anything but I want to
attach myself to remarks that were just made at least in part
because the point was made that really needs to be reminded
here and that is, this is not so much a debate about how much
is going to be spent; it is a debate about who gets to do the
spending and who can do it the most efficiently.
I think we can have this discussion about discrimination,
what level of discrimination is acceptable but I think we also
have to understand there is going to be a certain level of
discrimination. We discriminate every day and I don't think we
should force organizations, let me say in my case, I don't
think we should force Catholic schools to hire people who are
anti-Catholic. At some point there is some level of common
sense that we have to use and that could be true of any
organization.
I also want to share a quick story that I heard from John
Fund who is an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. He
used this analogy in front of an audience once and I have
stolen this, and I try to give him credit for it.
He asked people to visualize that you go home from this
meeting today and you open your mail and there is a letter
there from an attorney's office from a long way away. You open
up that letter and realize you have been named an heir to an
enormous fortune, that you didn't even know existed.
All of a sudden you are wealthy beyond your wildest dreams
and you think about that and think, I would like to do
something to help people less well off than I, I would like to
do something to help my fellow human beings. You think about
that because this is a windfall and you would like to donate a
significant portion of this. You think about that for a while
and then he asked the audience, how many of you, the first
thing you thought was, I know, I will give the money to a
Federal program and you can almost hear snickers in the
audience because we all know that if you really want to help
people who are down and out, probably the least efficient thing
you can do is run it through a Federal bureaucracy.
So the idea here, is there a way that we can use some of
those institutions that are in the neighborhoods, that are in
the communities, that are doing good things every day and they
are doing it with very little overhead. They are doing it not
because it is a job, but because it is a mission.
I don't know whether this can succeed. To be really blunt,
I am not sure you can co-mingle Federal programs and the
charitable instincts that most Americans have, but I think it
is worth a try. I hope we don't all find our own little petty
reasons to make certain that it doesn't succeed. Whether we
know it or not, there are literally millions of Americans out
there in all kinds of cities, towns and communities all around
who are counting on these kinds of programs, and counting on
religious leaders to help change their lives and change their
futures.
This is a great experiment. We are going to find out if it
can work.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I will be brief and associate myself with some of the
remarks already made by other members of the subcommittee.
Let me commend and congratulate both you and Mr. Cummings
for the tremendous work that this subcommittee does. I know you
have been all over the country holding hearings. I don't know
any other subcommittee that has as much work activity as I have
seen generated in this one. I simply want to appreciate the
leadership that both of you have displayed as we wrestle with
some of the toughest issues, questions and problems facing our
country.
I come from a strong faith tradition like many other
Members of the Congress. As a matter of fact, the church in my
community is the primary provider of services, Catholic
Charities, Catholic hospitals, Lutheran Family Services,
Baptist College, Methodists for Church Renewal. You could go on
and on and on. That has been tradition in many communities
throughout the country.
It is somewhat difficult to see what it is we are talking
about changing. Most of those institutions apply for a not-for-
profit chart, get themselves a 501(c)(3) tax exemption and they
go ahead and run programs. There are some who argue about the
provision of services and whether or not certain activities
ought to be licensed or codified and even though I am a
psychologist, I can attest to the fact that I have seen faith
activities that I thought were more successful in helping
people rid themselves of substance abuse or alcoholism, so I
have no problem whatsoever with the methodology, with the
concept or the structure.
I do believe that we are walking on shaky ground when we
create opportunities and encourage institutions that are
supposed to be the best in our land to discriminate against
other people because they may not be the same in terms of their
affirmation of faith. As a matter of fact, I recall one of the
hearings suggesting if there was an institution that had some
services to provide, that I could not work at because I did not
profess that same kind of religious faith, then I don't want
the service either.
I would rather that it go somewhere else. In the street, we
call that help the bear. If I can't work there and I have all
the credential, I meet all the requirements other than the fact
that I don't express the same faith, to be denied that
opportunity, then I would just as soon be denied the service.
I hope as we move this discussion and as we codify our
institutionalize the concept of faith-based realities, that we
not create a structure that encourages what should be the best
institutions amongst us to become the worst institutions
amongst us.
I thank the witnesses for coming to testify and certainly
for the work they have done on this initiative. I applaud
Representative Scott who has been passionate relative to the
position that I hold.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. Souder. Congresswoman Brown-Waite.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to express my appreciation for your holding this
hearing to bring our attention to the current state of and some
of the obstacles before the President's Faith-Based Initiative.
As you know, our country has a long tradition of assisting
individuals, families and communities that have not fully
shared in America's prosperity. I am very proud of this
heritage as are so many Members of Congress and feel the burden
of carrying on the noble tradition.
However, the Federal Government has the ability to better
utilize its country's resources through hundreds of faith-based
and community organizations to deliver effective care and
assistance to those in dire need. In the past, the Federal
Government has too often ignored or impeded the efforts of
faith-based and community organizations through bureaucratic
red tape and superficial obstacles, the Federal Government has
hindered the delivery of services very often to communities in
need. I applaud the efforts of the White House Office and the
Centers for Faith-Based Initiatives that are working to support
these essential organizations.
Let me tell you about a faith-based organization back home
in my district. It is known as Jericho Road Ministries. I have
been there, I have talked with the individuals who are served
by this wonderful organization. It is a rescue mission designed
to provide up to 3 nights monthly, emergency shelter to
homeless men and women in central Florida. Jericho Ministries
also provides a 36-week rehabilitation program designed to help
men reclaim their lives from the despair of homelessness and/or
drug or alcohol addiction. This single organization has
succeeded where government previously has failed by reforming
drug addicts and transforming them into productive citizens.
Let me tell you a brief story about a young man I met
there. His name is Keith. Keith came to Jericho Road Ministries
as a drug abuser without a job or a home, and certainly without
hope. Today, after completing their rehabilitation program, he
has worked his way up in just 3 short years to be the area
manager of a major retail store. Guess what? On his days off,
he comes back to Jericho Road Ministries and actually helps to
counsel and inspire men seeking to reclaim their lives.
I represent this wonderful organization and could tell you
about so many others in the community that the community
supports. I agree with Mr. Gutknecht, when you think about
helping an organization that is worthwhile in your area, you
don't say, I am going to strike a check to the Federal or State
Government but rather to one of those organizations out there
that you know and trust, and that has proven itself in the
community.
I certainly look forward to hearing the testimony of the
distinguished panelists today so that we can join in our
efforts in helping to continue the process of the faith-based
and community organizations.
I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I thank everybody for their statements. It is
good to know we all agree.
First, I want to ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to submit written statements and
questions for the hearing record and that any answers to
written questions provided by the witnesses will also be
included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents
and other materials referred to by Members such as Mr. Owens
did earlier may be included in the hearing record and that all
Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks.
Without objection, so ordered.
Before we hear the first panel, I would like to ask
unanimous consent that we also have some additional materials
to insert that staff has prepared.
Our first panel consists of the Honorable Mark Green, a
Member of the Congress from Wisconsin and the Honorable Robert
Scott, a Member of Congress from Virginia.
It is our standard practice to ask witnesses to testify
under oath. However, because Members of Congress have already
taken an oath upon entering the House of Representatives, it is
not necessary to repeat that here.
First, we would like to welcome Congressman Green. Thank
you for joining us. You are recognized for 5 minutes to talk
about the general subject of faith-based and also your
particular bill that you have introduced.
STATEMENTS OF HON. MARK GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN; AND HON. ROBERT C. SCOTT, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
STATEMENT OF HON. MARK GREEN
Mr. Green. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here
today.
The opening statements have all been very eloquent and I
think in many ways laid out the issues that all of us must
explore.
I would like to talk briefly about the implementation of
the Faith-Based Initiative and our plans to make its principles
permanent. When President Bush issued his Executive orders to
establish the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,
he said ``Faith-based and other community organizations are
indispensable in meeting the needs of poor Americans and
distressed neighborhoods. Government cannot be replaced by such
organizations, but it can and should welcome them as
partners.'' I agree and I believe most Americans do as well.
This community-governmental-organizational partnership is a
critical part of helping our communities find tools to deal
with the problems that society faces. While in some ways this
partnership has not developed as quickly as it could or should,
great progress has been made on a number of fronts. In order to
build on this success, we need to continue reaching out to
community groups trying to help our citizens who need it the
most.
Throughout history, faith-based organizations have shown
that they understand the problems their communities are facing.
After all, of course, they have relationships with the people
they serve. They view those in need not as clients, but as
neighbors. There are programs like Rawhide Boys Ranch in
Waupaca County, WI, an organization that helps troubled boys
straighten out their lives or Holy Redeemer in Milwaukee, WI, a
church that helps feed the hungry and find shelter for the
homeless. These are organizations that reach out to those in
need, not in order to further a religious ideology but because
their mission, quite simply, is to help their neighbors.
Unfortunately, faith-based groups have been unnecessarily
restricted from serving the public as well as they could
because of the beliefs that they hold. I say unnecessarily
because as long as these organizations open their doors to
everyone and do not require participation in their religious
operations, they can and should be allowed to participate in
Federal grant programs. Instead of closing doors to these
groups, we should open them wider so that more people have
additional opportunities to receive services and improve their
lives.
We must honor and follow the first amendment to the
Constitution when it says, ``Government shall not establish a
religion,'' but that same amendment also requires us to honor
``religious liberty'' and that means allowing these groups to
both practice their faith and serve their fellow Americans.
The Bush administration has tried to accomplish this
through its Executive orders creating the White House Office of
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The office and its
liaisons and various agencies have the tools and relationships
to break down barriers that hold these groups back
unnecessarily. While more needs to be done, this Initiative has
already helped people fight addiction, stop youth violence,
find a home, stay out of prison and manage diseases like AIDS.
Another way the administration has helped is by creating
the Compassionate Capital Fund. Since its launch 3 years ago,
it has provided $99.5 million in grants to 197 organizations
and sub-grants to over 1,700 grassroots organizations; provided
nearly $100 million for the Access to Recovery Program;
provided new grant money to increase mentors for children of
prisoners by 33,000 people. Overall, the office has increased
grants to faith-based organizations by 20 percent.
This is excellent work that we must continue to buildupon.
Most importantly, we need to ensure stability within the
program from one administration to the next. Furthermore, we
must make sure that our offices are coordinating with their
State liaisons to ensure that every State understands the
opportunities that are available to them.
Incidentally, many States are beginning to recognize the
value of State faith-based offices. Michigan Governor Jennifer
Granholm, a Democrat, created a State Office of Community and
Faith-Based Initiatives recently that will enlist religious
organizations to recruit mentors for foster children, provide
lower cost prescription drugs and fight substance abuse.
Unfortunately, many States haven't followed Michigan's
example. Just over 25 States have created offices or
established State liaisons to work with the White House Office
of Faith-Based Initiatives. With increasing needs and budget
concerns, States need these partnerships to help them maximize
our communities to meet community needs.
There is little doubt that some groups will continue to
attack faith-based partnerships and fight any Government
partnership with any group that has religious connections.
Governor Granholm responded to such criticism when she said,
``This is not about a particular faith; this is about serving
the citizens in the most effective way.'' Well said. This
initiative is about serving people in the most effective way.
We must embrace the work these organizations can do and
work with them and the States to help meet our community and
social challenges. With this initiative, we are finding mentors
of kids in need, homes for the homeless, help for those with
AIDS and alternatives to gains. No one should stand in the way
of organizations that are responsibly trying to help these kids
just because they happen to be faith-based.
I am currently developing legislation that guarantees the
Faith-Based Initiative will continue in the years ahead and
that every organization that wants to help is able to. I
believe we must show that government is committed to helping
our citizens by making the Faith-Based Initiative a statutory
feature to ensure equal treatment for all. This long term
commitment provides critical stability to community groups and
lets them know this is not just a passing government enterprise
that will abruptly end with a new President.
It also shows in statute what they can do consistent with
the law and what they cannot do. There is more that the leaders
of the Faith-Based Initiative have to do to better help those
in need but they have done some great work to date. It is my
hope this legislation will begin a larger debate about what new
steps should be taken to help facilitate and foster the efforts
of the Government and our Nation's benevolent service
organizations.
Again, I appreciate your holding this hearing and for your
time and consideration.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark Green follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Scott.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT C. SCOTT
Mr. Scott. Thank you for allowing me to testify today.
I believe strongly that religious organizations can, they
do and they should play an important and positive role in
meeting our Nation's social welfare needs. It has already been
pointed out that many faith-based organizations participate in
Government contracts. The Catholic Charities gets about $1
billion a year and has way before any faith-based initiative,
so we are not talking about allowing faith-based organizations
to participate; they already do.
There is a right and wrong way for Government to partner
with religious organizations. So before we pass any legislation
making permanent a faith-based and community initiative, we
must ask and receive clear answers to the question of how does
this initiative change present law.
It is one thing to just recite the good parts of the
present law, but we should not camouflage what the changes are.
And we are not fighting faith-based participation; we are
talking about the changes that are being proposed.
To begin with, there are four issues we have to directly
address and we need some straight answers to. First, does this
initiative allow Government to directly fund a house of
worship? Two, does the initiative permit a program using
Federal funds to proselytize during the Government-funded
program? Three, does the initiative change the law to permit
discrimination in employment with Federal funds? Four, does the
initiative change present law to permit the Government to award
funds in a manner that displays favoritism to one particular
religion over another religion or secular organization
objectively more qualified to do the job? Until we get answers
to those questions, we shouldn't be making anything permanent.
Let me go into those in more detail. First, the direct
funding of a house of worship. Directly funding religious
organizations is a Constitutional quagmire. My full remarks go
into that in detail. But also, not only from a Constitutional
point of view but a policy perspective, it has problems because
direct funding indicates we might be regulating the churches,
we might be subjecting the churches to Government scrutiny and
audits, and we may undermine the vitality of churches and the
community members who may be less inclined to dig a little
deeper to pay for the services. Finally, it threatens
interfaith peace by pitting one group against another. What
happens when one faith beats out another on a 4-3 vote? Just
how ugly is the next political campaign going to look?
Second, on proselytization, I think there is a clear
consensus that you should not proselytize during the
Government-funded program whether that proselytization is paid
for or not with Government funds. We ought to make it clear
that you can get the full benefit of the Government program
without being proselytized and we should make that clear.
On employment discrimination, we have to be clear as to how
the faith-based initiative changes present law. Since 1941, we
have had a policy of no discrimination with Federal money. That
was made clear 40 years ago in the 1960's, no discrimination
with Federal money. We have to also be clear that when you talk
about religious discrimination, if you get a pass on religious
discrimination, racial discrimination is essentially
unenforceable.
Finally, we are suggesting a profound change in civil
rights law. For the last 40 years, when an employer has a
problem hiring the best person because of race or religion, the
employer had a problem because the weight of the Federal
Government is on the side of the victim of discrimination
trying to get a job. Here we have a change in Government
posture where they are now protecting not the victim of
discrimination but trying to protect some right to
discriminate.
We prohibit discrimination in employment because we have
found that it is morally reprehensible to have someone apply
for a job and be turned down just because of race or religion.
If we allow discrimination in Federal contracts, we certainly
lose our moral authority to impose racial and religious
discrimination laws on individuals.
I take this personally because anybody my age who has been
discriminated against, not being able to eat at the lunch
counter, not being able to go to certain movies, getting stuck
in the back of the bus, so when somebody suggests what is the
problem with Catholics hiring Catholics or Whites hiring Whites
or anything like that, I take it personally.
If someone is going to change the law and allow this
discrimination, I just want to let them know that we are not
going to be silent as they try to change those laws.
On the issue of favoritism and objective merit, right now
faith-based organizations have the right to apply and compete.
Does this or does it not allow favoritism for one religion over
another? If you have another religious group and a secular
group with objectively more qualified proposals, can you give
favoritism to another organization or not?
Finally, let me say a quick word about vouchers. Many of
the Constitutional issues that apply to direct funding do not
apply to vouchers but you do have governance problems, one of
which is it is virtually impossible to guarantee the
availability of services where people with vouchers are coming
and going and quality control is virtually impossible to apply.
Whatever the problems churches may have in getting Federal
grants, all small organizations have so there may be some
common ground on providing technical assistance, community
action agencies or other ways to provide assistance to small
groups trying to get Federal contracts, but they should not be
able to discriminate as they do it.
We are not talking about expanding the number of people
that can get contracts. Any organization that can sponsor a
program under this faith-based initiative could do it anyway if
it agreed not to discriminate in employment.
Again, I want to focus the attention on the four questions
I asked: can you directly fund a church; can you proselytize
during a program; what is the deal on discrimination; and
favoritism. And how does this change present law because right
now, faith-based organizations can and do apply for Federal
grants and sponsor Federal programs and they do it like
everyone else--they use the money for which it was appropriated
and don't discriminate in employment.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Robert C. Scott follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony.
If we can agree to disagree on some of fundamental
characterizations, I believe that your statement proposes to
discriminate against those who would practice a consistent
faith and whether they should be eligible for Government grants
may be another question. We will debate that. I believe for you
to say a church must hire somebody who disagrees with that
church in effect says a church that applies a consistent
philosophy through their organization is not eligible, is not
welcome to participate in antipoverty programs.
I understand that position; we have argued that many times
on the House floor, many times in the Education Committee, you
guys argue in the Judiciary Committee, but I wanted to focus
very particularly on the legislation today and first ask Mr.
Green a technical question.
It looks to me like in the Sense of Congress Section,
Section 7, you would address some of the questions that Mr.
Scott raised, but fundamentally your bill tries to put this in
as a directorate. It would have to be debated as we went
through the legislative process. Is that correct?
Mr. Green. You are correct. In the opening remarks of my
esteemed colleague and some of the opening statement,
references were made to profound changes in current law. That
is not what we are doing here. We have the advantage of having
had the Executive orders in place now for several years as the
gentleman mentioned, and we have a history or track record. My
goal with this legislation is largely to make sure it does not
expire.
A lot of these organizations that are hoping to be able to
utilize Federal funds to help lift lives and heal communities
are now looking at the possibility that it may all go away in 3
to 3\1/2\ years' time. I hope to provide some stability and
predictability.
Second, the other important reason for putting this into
statute and codifying it is to create clear guidelines on what
they cannot do, which I think is as important as anything. A
number of Members have rightly raised concerns. I think the
best way to address those concerns is to spell them out, as has
been done in the Executive order but now give it the force of
statute so it is there for everyone to see what an organization
can do and more importantly, what it cannot and should not do.
Mr. Souder. In your opinion, in the Sense of Congress
Section of this bill, Section 7, does this freeze the Executive
orders or would a new President be able to issue other
Executive orders within this framework?
Mr. Green. I don't know the answer to that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Because in many of these, we deal with it bill
by bill. For example, it may come up in the Head Start bill, it
is part of welfare reform and the question is whether that will
be continued. I think one of the fundamental questions we need
to work through in your bill, because I see the arguments for
both from our perspective codifying in the law more generally
and on the other hand, would this apply to programs we have
never legislated on? How do we work through the actual
implementation?
I wanted to ask this of Mr. Scott. Ironically, one of the
problems we have right now is it is fine to say we can't move
this bill until we get some answers from the administration.
The administration refuses to testify. The reason they refuse
to testify is because they say right now the office is under
the White House directly, therefore, it is pre-decisional
information. They are not subject to the Congress, that we can
bring people forward from the different agencies but the
different agencies with pressures from OMB and from the White
House directly in many cases don't actually control the
programs.
I find myself in a very ironic position. Personal friends
with people who are administering the program, supportive of a
particular program, but basically I have a Constitutional
question right now. If programs are going to be directed
directly out of the White House and by OMB, should there not be
congressional oversight even if I happen to agree with them?
Certainly I believe there should be congressional oversight
should the White House change parties and then we are doing
oversight but I am trying to be consistent enough to say I
believe it ought to happen regardless of who is in charge, even
if I like what is going on.
Do you have a fundamental opposition to what Mr. Green is
trying to do by codifying this so we can actually get
oversight?
Mr. Scott. You have asked a lot of different questions. One
is how you get the prohibition against discrimination, where
that came from, particularly in light of the exemption under
Title 7. The prohibition against discrimination has been kind
of a compilation of things but the most direct prohibition
against discrimination has been in President Johnson's 1965
Executive order which expanded Executive orders going back
since 1941.
Mr. Souder. Can I clarify what my comment was? In
Congressman Green's bill in Title 7 under ``Sense of
Congress,'' things related to discrimination. The question is,
this bill could theoretically be done two different ways. It
could have the first six sections which look to me like they
are mostly making the office permanent and then Section 7 which
may or may not since it is the sense of Congress, have the
effect of codifying the Executive orders. If we did that, you
would have a problem with the bill?
Mr. Scott. Yes, I would have a real problem because it
depends on which Executive order you codify. If you codify
Johnson's Executive order, then that would be fine. President
Bush, as you indicated, signed another Executive order which
allowed discrimination. Some bills have specific prohibitions
against discrimination. You mentioned Head Start and some
others which have specific prohibitions against discrimination.
You can't change statute with an Executive order. So if you
allow discrimination in all programs, by statute, then you are
right. You could not change that by Executive order.
It is interesting you mentioned it was under the White
House and not under anybody's authority. It asks the question:
why are these programs in the White House and not in the
various agencies if you are funding certain programs? The
agencies fund programs the old-fashioned way. You fund the best
program by objective standards. If that is not what you are
doing, what are you doing? Is it religious discrimination, is
it favoritism, is it politics or what? Why is this thing run
out of the White House? If it is a health program, why isn't it
run out of Health? If it is a housing program, why isn't it run
out of Housing? Those are the real questions.
In response to another question you asked, why should
someone of one religion have to work with somebody of another
religion, whatever you think about it, I thought we had decided
that in the 1960's where whether you like to or not, whether
you are devoutly religious or not, even with your own private
money, we have decided that religious discrimination was so
odious that we decided it ought to be illegal. In the 1960's,
we had the votes.
There is obviously a reconsideration of whether or not
people ought to have to work with people of different religions
and we are revisiting the question.
Mr. Souder. I was trying to avoid the argument but as you
know full well, we have a difference of opinion on the
interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as it relates to
religious discrimination, the courts have not been consistent
in how they have interpreted this and that is why we have had
to do all sorts of things.
Mr. Scott. The courts have been consistent.
Mr. Souder. Oh, no. They have said that Catholic schools
can get money for buses; they said Catholic schools can get
money for computers even if they hire only Catholics. As you
correctly pointed out in the vouchers, in the vouchers it is
even more confusing. There it is more of a management question,
they allow the vouchers but even in some direct funding, they
allow discrimination to occur.
Mr. Scott. You mentioned discrimination. Title 7 gives them
the right to discriminate. The Free Exercise Clause gives them
the right to discriminate. When you are dealing with Federal
money and the right to discriminate, President Johnson's
Executive order has been the law of the land since 1965. If you
are selling rifles to the Defense Department, if you
discriminate in your manufacturing process, whether or not they
are the best and cheapest rifles, the Defense Department won't
buy them from you.
Mr. Souder. I am sure we will hear more and we will
continue to argue that question.
Let me clarify because I don't agree with your
interpretation. We have argued this on the floor and will
continue to argue but the way I understood what you said was in
effect, even if it wasn't codified in this bill, even if our
view was not put in, you would have a philosophical problem
with a codified White House, Office of Faith-Based Initiative
because you think it ought to be run inside each agency as a
health program and so on?
Mr. Scott. I think you ought to answer some questions so
everybody knows what is going on. I have asked four questions
and you can't get an answer to those questions.
Mr. Souder. Because it isn't codified?
Mr. Scott. I don't know why you can't get an answer. We
have been struggling and it took us about 3 years to get an
answer to the question, can you discriminate and you got all
kinds of confusing, contradictory, evasive kinds of answers and
finally after we had some rifle shot amendments that said no,
you can't discriminate, then people had to kind of acknowledge
I guess that is what is going on. You finally got an answer to
that question but are there favorites? Can you practice
favoritism of one religion over another? If not, what are we
talking about?
Mr. Souder. Whether this committee moves ahead with the
bill or not and this is a challenge because we are having this
with ONDCP too because in our ONDCP reauthorization, we had
some similar debates because technically the Drug Czar is under
the Office of the White House but it has been a codified
office, so they have to respond. Can this bill be drafted where
we could either put in certain things or can the bill be
drafted such that there is an office that as a practical
matter, yes, the Health, Education, Housing, all the different
departments have an office of Faith-Based and the funding runs
through that.
Everybody knows under every modern President, it doesn't
matter whether it is a Democrat or Republican, that OMB is
making a lot of the day-to-day decision type of input or you
can lose your position, which is hard enough to oversee but we
also know that in every White House, you have advisors to the
President. The question is how much do those advisors to the
President work as advisors to the President versus management,
kind of line function? Is it a dotted line or a direct line
that goes over to the different agencies?
To the degree that this office works as a more filled in
direct line as opposed to a dotted line, it ought to have more
congressional oversight. The question is, should we be moving a
bill that tries to move it in that direction regardless of how
the wording is?
Mr. Green and then I will yield.
Mr. Green. Mr. Chairman, with this legislation, we simply
took what we thought was the path of least resistance in terms
of drafting it. We are open to changes. There is nothing magic
about the terminology, the actual language. The goal here is to
ensure the Faith-Based Initiative, forget the office, I view it
as something separate, the Faith-Based Initiative continues on.
I recognize that Presidents are going to always want to
implement and put things into practice in their own way in
terms of where they put the offices and such. What we wish to
codify are the principles of the Faith-Based Initiative. That,
to me, is more important than the office and where that office
is located, whether it is in the White House or in individual
agencies. It is principles we hope to codify and certainly we
are open to changes in this legislation and modifications.
Mr. Scott. Let me say briefly that is what we are trying to
figure out, what principles we are trying to codify, the four
questions, and we ought to talk about how this changes present
law. Reciting the good parts of present law, that is nice but
how will this bill change present law by instituting some
policy, and then can you directly fund a church, can you
proselytize during the program, can you discriminate and are we
talking about favoritism? Get a straight answer to those
questions, then we will know what we are talking about.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to start with the last question Mr.
Scott asked, the question of favoritism. Mr. Green, do you
think faith-based organizations have been discriminated against
in the past? Mr. Scott says these organizations like Catholic
Charities and some others have gotten all kinds of money. I am
trying to figure out whether it is your belief that the system
that has been used, however Catholic Charities and others get
their moneys, is there something wrong with that system?
Mr. Green. First off, I guess I would disagree with the
characterization that these organizations are getting money.
Under the Faith-Based Initiative, there are pretty strict
standards and accountability for how that money is spent. This
is money that doesn't belong to an organization, nor does it
belong to a Federal agency. This is money obviously that
belongs to those in need, those who are being served.
Second, I think the problem has been not so much with the
Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services of the world,
those are large organizations, they have substantial staff to
help them wade through the myriad of regulations and paperwork,
bureaucracy and red tape that any organization has to go
through.
The real target for the Faith-Based Initiative has been
those smaller organizations that don't have those kinds of
resources or the same ability to wade through the regulations
and barriers. That is what we are hoping the Faith-Based
Initiative will help, that we will cause small community and
faith-based organizations around the country to take a look at
what is being done, what Catholic Charities may be doing, a
Rawhide or an Urban Help and say to themselves, that need
exists in my community and we can do that. We don't know how
to, where can we turn to for help and guidance? Who can assist
us through this process? Who can help us out?
That is the idea to me behind the Faith-Based Initiative,
creating a resource that these organizations can go to. Just as
importantly as helping them affirmatively be able to serve
those in need, it is absolutely as important to let them know
what it is they cannot do, what those rules and restrictions
are so they don't cross the lines that many have raised and
should be raised. That is part of what the Faith-Based
Initiative will do as well, show them what they cannot do.
Mr. Cummings. So one aspect of it would be more or less
counseling, is that what you are saying?
Mr. Green. Counseling, predictability, something that is
there for them to be able to take a look so they understand.
Mr. Cummings. I didn't mean to imply in any way they were
getting money for themselves. I know the money is being used to
carry out wonderful purposes. On one hand, there are those who
really want to see these organizations do their thing and do
these wonderful things but at the same time, can you understand
the sensitivity with regard to discrimination.
I forget how Mr. Scott said it but there are many people,
and our country is becoming more and more diverse every second,
who have been discriminated against and who have been held back
big time. Not only were they held back but their mothers,
grandmothers, grandfathers, great grandfathers were held back
because of discrimination. Can you understand that whenever
discrimination raises its head, there are a lot of people who
will get upset about it because they know what it feels like. I
am just curious.
Mr. Green. Absolutely. First, let me say that I think part
of reaching out to the community of faith, many of these
organizations in neighborhoods that have specific needs and
very special needs reaching out to them I think will ensure the
services we deliver to these neighborhoods will be as effective
as possible. I think we will do a better job in reaching out to
heal neighborhoods and to work with those in need.
Second, again I come back to it, that is why I think it is
so very important for us to spell out the rules for what cannot
be done, so there isn't discrimination. I think that is very
important indeed.
Third, I think an important point, there is also the
concept of religious freedom and freedom of expression, and I
am Catholic. To say that my church, the Catholic church, and I
am not suggesting you are saying this, but is not able to
participate in the wonderful work that Catholic Charities does
because it is a male-only priesthood, none of us are suggesting
that obviously. We recognize that there are concepts of
religious freedom here, that the Constitution provides we must
not discriminate on religious grounds. It also provides freedom
of religious expression.
It is a sensitive area and an area where we have to tread
carefully and it is an area where I think we have an obligation
to all Americans to make sure we are very specific in those
guidelines so that we don't creep into what you have rightly
pointed out is a fear in this country, a well founded fear in
too many places.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Very briefly. When you suggest there is no
suggestion that any of this discussion has anything to do with
what religious organizations do with their own money, the
Catholic Church can do what it wants to, hire who it wants for
a priest. That is not on the table for discussion. The question
is whether or not they can participate in a federally funded
program and take the Federal money and only hire men or only
hire Catholics and deny employment opportunities with the
Federal money, not with the church money, continue doing what
they want with the church money, can they deny employment
opportunities to people because of religion? As I indicated, if
you have to pass on religion, you cannot enforce racial
discrimination laws.
When you talk about the small organizations, the small
churches, those problems in dealing with Federal contracts
apply to small churches, apply to small organizations, the
crime watch organization, all these other unincorporated
associations, they are going to have problems dealing with the
paperwork of a Federal grant. Maybe we need some technical
assistance or maybe we need to use the CAP agencies, community
action agencies, to help administer the money so they can
perform their good work but not have to do all of the
paperwork.
Again, I go back to the point on favoritism. How does this
change present law? Are we going to allow organizations to be
favored over more qualified organizations because we favor that
religion or not? How does it change present law and the
question of favoritism? Remember, any program that can get
funded under the Faith-Based Initiative could be funded anyway
if you agree not to discriminate in employment.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Scott, on the culture, President Bush in
his State of the Union, I can't remember his exact words but
basically he implied that if you are not allowed to
discriminate, and I have heard it somewhat here today, if you
are not allowed to discriminate, a religious organization, then
it may affect the culture of the religious organization and
what they are trying to do? I can't remember the exact words
but I remember the impression.
Mr. Scott. We went through that in the 1960's in past
legislation that no matter how religious or devout you may be,
in your own business, you cannot discriminate against people
because of their race or religion. That was controversial but
we decided it was so invidious we were going to make it
illegal. If you were devout, whatever your devotion is, you are
hiring people with your own money, you cannot discriminate in
employment.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. Gutknecht. I don't want to wear this thing out but I
think this is the crux of the problem. It seems to me we all
have to come up with a way to define this because so far, we
have been fortunate. It strikes me that we haven't had more
lawsuits than we have.
I think we all share the notion that nobody in America
should discriminate. I think we all agree on that but where it
becomes problematic is when you start to define this in the
statute, what is discrimination, what is not discrimination.
Then it becomes incredibly complicated. We can all come up with
examples whether it is this particular religion being forced to
hire people to be part of this program who are very much
opposed to the basic tenets of that religion. It is a very
sticky wicket.
Maybe we can't do that. Maybe it can't be done but I think
you are imposing something on an organization if you force a
black Baptist church to hire people who are clearly opposed and
have real strong feelings about whatever that the tenets of
that church are or in any of these circumstances, I am not sure
how we define this.
I think as has been indicated for the most part and there
are some churches who have just said we are not going to play
because if we go down this path, sooner or later we are going
to be drawn into this web and we are going to be forced to play
by a set of rules that begin to compromise the basic tenets of
this faith. Maybe you can elaborate on that. Are you saying
that a church should be forced to hire people who strongly
disagree with certain teachings of that church?
Mr. Scott. Not with the church money, no. With the Federal
money or for the Federal purpose, which I think people have
agreed pretty much it is a secular purpose--yes, you have to
play by the same rules as everyone else. I guess the question
of the employer just doesn't want to hire the person because of
their religion, whose problem is that?
You could be a devout whatever and you just don't like
people of another religion and you are hiring people. Whose
problem is that? Is that yours or is that the employee's
problem? We decided in the 1960's, that is your problem. If you
can't hire people of a different religion, then you are looking
down the barrel end of a lawsuit. That is the way it has been
since the 1960's. If you can't hire people, either you don't do
business in the United States, you can't hire Title 7, I forget
what the threshold number is, but if you hire more people than
that, then you are looking at the barrel end of a lawsuit.
I don't care how devout you are, how much you hate
somebody's religion, you have to hire the best qualified or you
are looking at a lawsuit. That is what we decided in the
1960's. You are right, it was a sticky wicket. Some White
people don't like Black people, why should they have to hire
them, why should they have to work with them? We decided in
that in the 1960's and I am glad they did. I don't want to go
back to where they can say I don't want to work with those
people. Maybe we need to revisit it. Maybe it is a sticky
wicket but that is the way it has been and that is the way I
like it. Maybe others want to revisit it but you are right, it
is sticky. That is the way it is, you hire the best qualified
regardless of race or religion in the United States.
Mr. Gutknecht. But in terms of qualifications, if somebody
clearly doesn't agree with the basic tenets of a particular
religion, then you say they still could be the best qualified
person for that job?
Mr. Scott. You are doing a Federal job; you are not doing a
church job. You are being hired with Federal money. We are not
even discussing what you do with the church money. We are
talking about a Federal contract with the money, like the Head
Start Program. You are providing an educational service, you
are not providing religious education. It is Head Start
education and with the Federal money, so no, you shouldn't be
able to discriminate. If you can't work with people of
different religions, I believe if the sponsor of the program
can't work with people of different religions in the Head Start
Program, then yes, I think the employer has a problem.
If you have problems or you can't work with the people of
different races and religions, maybe you ought not to be able
to sponsor federally funded programs. This was debated. I was
reading the Congressional Record and one of the Representatives
from New York said, this is simple, stop the discrimination,
get the money. Continue the discrimination, don't get the
money.
Mr. Gutknecht. Mr. Green.
Mr. Green. It is an important discussion we are having but
let me return us to where we are. We have now had an Executive
order on the books for 3 years. It is being implemented and
here aren't all the allegations that have been suggested by Mr.
Scott. I am not aware of them having taken place. This is
something we need to debate.
On the other hand, it seems to be working quite well.
Common sense is being applied. There are guidelines to what you
can and cannot do, there are guides put out for faith-based
organizations, particularly smaller organizations which might
not always have the same level of sophistication and it is
working. So we are not talking about dramatic changes in law.
We are talking about what is working right now and trying to
ensure that it continues to work into the future.
This debate is an important one but many of these issues
are being addressed quite effectively in the working world, the
implementation of the Executive order. So that should give us
some comfort here as we go forward.
Mr. Scott. May I make a quick comment on that?
Mr. Souder. Sure.
Mr. Scott. Some of this hasn't happened because State laws
prohibit discrimination. Although it may not be prohibited
under Federal law, there may be State laws that prohibit
discrimination. There is a serious question on whether or not a
pervasively sectarian organization can get direct funding
anyway. When President Clinton signed some of these bills--and
his name is always thrown around as supporting this--in his
signing statement, he made it clear there was kind of a catch
22. If you are a pervasively sectarian organization, he doesn't
think you can get funding. If you are not a pervasively
sectarian organization, you don't have an exemption under Title
7. So anyone who ended up with the money couldn't discriminate.
I question whether or not people really think they have the
right to discriminate and that is why we haven't seen the
problems.
Mr. Souder. The question goes in order of seniority in the
subcommittee. Mr. Davis has left, so it is Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Thank you very much.
I am reading the bill and apparently this is an attempt to
make this a permanent program to establish an office and make
it a permanent program. For the benefit of the audience, if
passed and signed by the President, this becomes law and
whenever you use the word shall it is a mandate and so I want
to address this to Representative Green.
I am looking at page 3, line 13, subsection 5, ``The
Director shall help to integrate policies affecting faith-based
and other community organizations across the Federal
Government; shall coordinate public education activities
designed to mobilize public support for faith-based and
community initiatives.'' I really don't know what that really
means and possibly it could be interpreted in a court of law.
I go on to on that same page, line 24, it says ``Advise the
President,'' this brings the President into the implementation
of this program. It says, ``Advise the President on options and
ideas to assist, strengthen and replicate successful faith-
based and community initiatives.'' It goes on to say on page 4,
``to support and encourage faith-based and community
initiatives.'' My interpretation would be to support the faith-
based, faith-based initiatives rather than other kinds of
community service programs.
It goes on to say, ``Work to eliminate unnecessary
legislative and regulatory barriers which impeded the efforts
of faith-based.'' That means ease up the oversight and the
responsibility we as selected officials have over the use of
Federal programs.
I have questions on almost every page and every line but
the ones that popped out at me, it says under Sense of
Congress, ``In the administration or distribution of Federal
financial assistance, no organization shall be discriminated
against on the basis of religion or religious belief.'' I
didn't hear that in the debate. It is in this bill. So you can
challenge if there is discrimination against someone who then
would go into a program and ask to be hired because they were
real qualified. I didn't hear that argument brought out.
Mr. Green. If I can respond to that, that is not the
discrimination you are referring to. It is referring to
discrimination against organizations which happen to be faith-
based, saying those organizations may not participate in
Federal grant programs because they are faith-based.
Ms. Watson. I am going to go through all these concerns and
then you can respond.
Then on page 9, lines 11 and 12, ``Any organization that
receives Federal financial assistance to provide social
services shall be prohibited from discriminating against
beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries of the service it
provides.'' You need to know that piece is in there.
On page 10, line 4, ``Any faith-based organization that
receives Federal financial assistance should be able to retain
its independence and to continue to carry out its mission
including the definition, development, practice and expression
of religious beliefs,'' that worries me, ``provided that it
does not use Federal financial assistance to support any
inherently religious activities such as worship, religious
instruction,'' and this says you can indoctrinate. We really
have to look at the wording here.
On the same page, line 19, ``Any faith-based organization
that receives Federal financial assistance should be able to
retain any religious terms in the organization's name, take
religion into account in selecting board members and include
religious references in any organization mission, statements or
other chartering or governing documents.''
This is a Federal policy that you want to codify on a
permanent basis. This Federal money is derived from tax moneys,
my tax moneys, yours and everyone in this room who pays taxes.
I cannot support a faith-based program that would take a look
at me, a Catholic and say you cannot work here regardless of
how qualified I am. I would like to see something in this bill
that prohibits discrimination based on a whole series of
things.
I think it is unfinished and this is my point. Because you
do not deserve my tax dollars if I am qualified and cannot work
in your institution, I being a recipient and being a victim of
discrimination over the years feel this very deeply,
emotionally and passionately and anything that I have to do or
vote on, I want to be sure there are protections so people like
myself will not continue to be victimized only because we did
not debate, discuss and think it through.
Thank you for giving us something we can look at and we can
analyze and we can suggest. Maybe we can come up with some
amendments that will address my concerns.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Green. I appreciate what the lady said. I think the
lady should take comfort from one of the provisions she read.
The provision you read says, ``Any organization that receives
Federal financial assistance, provides social services should
be prohibited from discriminating against beneficiaries or
potential beneficiaries on the basis of religion.'' That is
what you have asked for.
Ms. Watson. Exactly. I wanted to point that out. That gave
me comfort but then as I read we are asking for a promotion of
these faith-based programs, so I would like to see a provision
in there.
Mr. Green. If that provision is in there, it would have the
force of law which should give you comfort. The promotion we
are talking about is letting organizations know that they have
the opportunity to participate because for years they have been
told they need not apply. These organizations for years have
been pushed away from being involved in delivery of Federal
services. They have not had the ability, at least in their
minds, to be able to participate in Federal grant programs.
Particularly those smaller organizations that don't have the
same level of sophistication or assets, resources that some of
the well-known organizations have, like Habitat for Humanity.
So that's the promotion that we're talking about. Many of
the provisions that you have pointed to, again, are current
Federal policy. And again, finally, I could not agree with you
more with respect to the need for spelling out the clear policy
and law that we cannot discriminate against beneficiaries on
the basis of religion. That's why that provision is in there.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, could I say just a word? That is,
there is no prohibition against these organizations
participating now. We want to know what the change in the law
will be. Any program that can get funded under this faith-based
initiative could be funded without the faith-based initiative,
as long as they agree not to discriminate in employment.
Second, there is a difference between beneficiary or
potential beneficiaries and employment. Those are two different
issues. I think there is a consensus that you shouldn't
discriminate against beneficiaries, that is, students of the
Head Start program. The question is whether you could
discriminate in hiring teachers in the Head Start program.
And finally, the Section 7 is a sense of Congress.
Switching hats to my Judiciary Committee, I am not sure a Sense
of Congress is even enforceable. I don't know what the deal is.
Ms. Watson. If I might just respond. I think we need to go
over line and verse and then try to clarify, so that we don't
end up having suits and tying up the implementation of such a
law in court. Because I would be the first one in court, if I
walked in and someone said to me, well, you're Catholic. I know
what it says there, but you're Black.
Mr. Green. But it does say that. It does provide the
protection that you've asked for. That protection is right--you
just read through it.
Ms. Watson. But I don't know what it means when it says,
the Director shall advise the President how to promote a
particular faith-based program, you see. I think we get into
trouble with that.
So I think what we need to do is to re-look at the
provisions that are already in the bill, discuss them like we
are doing here, and I appreciate this opportunity to bring out
some of my concerns.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Owens. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Green, you just indicated that the
organizations would be strictly prohibited from discriminating
on the basis of religion. What could they discriminate on the
basis of?
Mr. Green. Well, it's a legal question, you would have to
ask an attorney. Again, I think the legislation speaks for
itself and makes it very clear that in terms of beneficiaries,
that you cannot discriminate. Again, this doesn't change
current law. This is an effort to codify existing policy and to
make sure that what is taking place out there and is working
continues beyond this administration. That's what this
legislation seeks to do. It is not changing policy.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Well, perhaps you or Mr. Scott could
tell me, say, the difference between, let's say that I have the
Davis Temple Baptist Church. And I take myself two or three of
my members, my choir director and my deacon board and the
trustee board, and we decide to incorporate ourselves into the
Davis Temple Foundation and go and apply for a grant, apply to
the Internal Revenue Service and get ourselves a 501(c)(3) tax-
exempt status and become the recipient.
What is the difference between the Davis Temple Foundation
and the Davis Temple Baptist Church, and they are the very same
people with the same mission, with the same motivation, with
the same purposes? What is the difference?
Mr. Scott. If it is a separate organization, it would be
looked at separately. Now, if you have a mission that is
strictly religious, there would be very little difference. But
usually, when you set up the separate 501(c)(3) organization,
you set that up as a charitable organization, not a religious
organization. When you receive money in the 501(c)(3), you are
subject to the same law as everybody else is; when you receive
money to perform a Government service, you have to use the
money for which it was appropriated and you can't discriminate
in employment.
That's why I said, any program--that Davis Temple whatever,
whether it is under this, under that--any program that could
get funded under this bill, under the faith-based policy, could
have been funded anyway if you would agree not to discriminate
in employment. You may have to set up a 501(c)(3) or whatever.
But if you are running a program that could have been funded
anyway if you would agree not to discriminate in employment.
So unless you're talking favoritism, basically in the
faith-based initiative, all you're talking about is rolling
back the clock on discrimination laws.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. That's kind of my feeling. There has
to be some underlying reason or some underlying cause. I mean,
I hear that the institutions don't know that they can apply. I
just don't know any that don't know that they can become a
charitable organization and follow the same rules and
regulations as other charitable organizations. I don't know any
institutions that can get any smaller than what we call the
store-front churches in the community where I live and work and
have spent all of my adult life.
It is difficult for me to rationalize the need to suggest
that the only way these individuals are going to know that they
can develop programs and apply for Federal resources is that we
have a faith-based initiative operating out of the President's
office. So I just have some serious difficulty understanding
that, and think that there must be some reason beyond what I am
hearing and what I know for us to feel the need to codify such
a program as it is outlined in this bill.
So I thank you gentlemen, but I just can't see the
rationale. I can't see the logic. I yield back.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. This is testimony I would have very much liked
to hear. I was ranking member on another committee. I have
followed this issue very closely, because when I chaired the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, we issued religious
discrimination guidelines. And they were very important to
spell out broadly the protection against religious
discrimination.
And Title VII of the 1964 Act, which I administered and
under which these guidelines were developed, of course, has
very broad protection for religious organizations, essentially
an exemption from the, in their activities from the
discrimination laws. Not only their religious activities, but
their secular activities, in their dealing with the money that
is protected under the Constitution by the first amendment with
their own religious-based money.
Of course, whenever we deal in this sensitive area, we are
bound by the first amendment's establishment of religion
clause, which prohibits Government-financed or Government-
sponsored indoctrination of beliefs of a religious faith. So
this bill has been held up for years, because even though the
House and Senate are full of people who agree and who have seen
faith-based organization Constitutionally administer public
funds, there seems to be something more desired.
What particularly concerns me in my discussions over the
years with Representative Scott is, of course, that we could
see a great deal of public funds going to religious
organizations which by their very nature are segregated. That
is just out of tradition. Jews turn out to be mostly White.
Black people go basically to churches which are mostly Black.
Nobody has any criticism to be made of those.
Social services have been handled across these religious
lines. So the notion of saying, you can handle my funds and
hire only people of your religion, to handle my funds, to
handle my taxpayers' funds, seems to me to be a slam dunk
unconstitutional matter.
I would just like to ask this question. If we could get
over the other issues that have been discussed here, would you
agree that any such bill should clarify this matter right up
front and say, any organization, any religious organization
which in fact accepts public funds must not discriminate in the
employment of people who are employed to distribute the
services with public funds? That is my straight-out question.
Would you be willing to have any such legislation clarify
that if a religious organization accepts public funds, it
agrees not to discriminate on the basis of race and religion in
its employment practices only in the distribution, only in
administering services using these public taxpayer funds?
Mr. Souder. A brief answer by each one of you. We have 8
minutes left to vote.
Mr. Green. I am not sure it is possible to give a brief
answer. The first important point, this legislation has not
been held up for years. I drafted it for the first time last
fall.
Ms. Norton. I meant the legislation of this kind. I didn't
mean to refer to your bill.
Mr. Green. This is different. And it is an important part
of the response here. This is not a clean slate. This takes
what is working well right now, and for which I have not heard
allegations made, we have not seen lawsuits made, and would
seek to codify them and to make sure that it exists beyond the
expiration of this administration.
So that should give us all some reassurance here. We do
have protections spelled out, we do have laws on the books----
Ms. Norton. Would you agree that----
Mr. Green [continuing]. And so this----
Ms. Norton [continuing]. To such language in your bill?
Mr. Green. I would be happy to work with the lady to look
at what language is most appropriate. But I will not allow or I
would not support language that forces faiths or religions to
entirely surrender their religious independence and their
religious expression. It is a fine line, and in my opening
remarks we talked about how it is a sensitive area. We have a
tightrope here that we have to walk. This goes back to the
Clinton administration. They tried to draw a fine line. I think
it is something that isn't easy that we need to do.
But again, there is not a clean slate here. We have
something now in place that is working. So that should be a
reassurance to yourself and to many of the Members here who
have expressed concerns. We can take a look at how the current
Executive order is being implemented and how it is working, and
we can take a look at allegations, if there are indeed
allegations of discrimination in hiring and those are things I
think are appropriate to look at.
But again, this is not something new that we are creating
here.
Mr. Scott. Just very briefly, you don't have to surrender
anything if you sponsor a federally funded program. You can do
what you want with your church funds.
With the Federal funds, any program that can get funded
with Federal funds could be funded anyway if the sponsoring
organization would agree not to discriminate. So that begs the
question of, if that is all you are talking about. So there is
no faith-based initiative without discrimination unless you are
talking about favoritism, that is, that you could favor one
religious organization over an objectively more qualified
program sponsored by another religion or a secular
organization. So unless you are talking favoritism, all you are
talking about is discrimination.
Furthermore, you know from your work on the EEOC that if
you can't, if you have a pass on religious discrimination,
racial discrimination is essentially unenforceable.
Mr. Souder. I thank the gentlelady. I thank both of the
gentlemen from Wisconsin and Virginia. We have five votes, it
will be approximately 45 minutes and we will reconvene with the
second panel.
The subcommittee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee is reconvened.
Our second panel is composed of Stanley Carlson-Thies,
Director of Social Policy Studies at the Center for Public
Justice; Mr. David Kuo, former Deputy Director of the White
House Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; and Bobby Polito,
former Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Since you are already here, if you will each stand and
raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
Thank you for your patience. That was--the last vote did
not even occur, it was a frustrating process over there. The
clock was moving pretty slowly.
But now we don't plan to have any more votes the rest of
this evening, so we should be able to get through the rest of
the next few panels in an orderly manner. Thank you each for
coming, for being willing to testify at this hearing, and we
will start with Dr. Carlson-Thies.
STATEMENTS OF STANLEY CARLSON-THIES, DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL POLICY
STUDIES, CENTER FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE; DAVID KUO, FORMER DEPUTY
DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVE; AND
BOBBY POLITO, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR FAITH-BASED AND
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
STATEMENT OF STANLEY CARLSON-THIES
Mr. Carlson-Thies. Thank you, Chairman Souder, and the
subcommittee, for the opportunity to comment on H.R. 1054.
I was on the original staff at the White House Office of
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, serving until May 2002,
and I worked particularly with the Centers for Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives. I am now with the Center for Public
Justice. We subcontract with the HHS Center for Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives and the Corporation for National
Community Service. I also consult with State governments.
I am glad to support this bill to codify the structure and
principles of the faith-based initiative. I will suggest some
changes.
I think the faith-based initiative is very important for
revitalizing our society's help for the needy. Its importance
cannot be measured by the relatively slow pace of change in the
delivery of social services, a slow pace that we ought to
expect, given the institutions and interests involved.
The faith-based initiative is a lever, decisively bending
the Federal system so that faith-based providers have an equal
opportunity to partner with the Government without suppressing
their religious character. Of course, Government collaboration
with religious organizations is not new, but I think the
critics are wrong to say that the partnership needed no reform.
One Constitutional scholar, reflecting on the restrictive
conditions that often accompany Federal funds, called Federal
grant programs ``relentless engines of secularization.''
Of course, the White House Report on unlevel playing fields
documented a series of barriers and said that the chief problem
was ``an overriding perception by Federal officials that close
collaboration with religious organizations is legally
suspect.'' In the meantime, of course, the courts have shifted
direction. In decisions that culminated with Mitchell v. Helms
in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted from the old ``no
aid to religion doctrine'' to the concept of equal treatment
which requires officials not to be biased against an applicant
merely because of its religious character. The question is
whether the applicant can provide the services while respecting
the law.
Congress responded to that legal development by adopting
charitable choice four times, and President Clinton signed the
bills into law. But I think his administration did not
decisively level the playing field for explicitly religious
organizations. By contrast, President Bush has made reforms a
high priority. Most significant are three actions. One of them
was the creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives and the Centers for Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives.
The second was a promulgation of charitable choice
regulations to guide State and local officials. The third I
think is the President's December 2002 Executive order on equal
protection for faith-based and community organizations which
sets out equal treatment principles to cover Federal funds not
governed by charitable choice and applies to State and local as
well as Federal officials.
Some have said that this Executive order improperly
sidestepped Congress. I believe it was the administration's
response to the Court's equal treatment requirement. Thus the
Federal Government, I think, has been given a very significant
reorientation. I commend Jim Towey and the Center directors for
this.
Yet more remains to be done. Let me note a few areas.
First, the Federal Government should do more to inform State
and local agencies about the equal treatment rules and to
ensure their implementation. Without such leadership, it is no
surprise that faith-based organizations often encounter local
resistance. This problem also hampers the access to recovery
program, which uses vouchers to offer a wider array of drug
treatment services from a more diverse set of providers.
Without sufficient Federal guidance, the pace of State
innovation has been slow.
Second, more guidance should be offered to faith-based
organizations that collaborate with Government. Otherwise,
despite their best intentions, the organizations may violate
important rules and land in trouble.
Third, the Federal Government should clarify whether a
State or local government can restrict religious staffing, even
when the Federal program rules have no such restriction. The
confusion about this makes some faith-based organizations leery
about collaboration.
Fourth, I think the Government should more vigorously
promote vouchers and social service programs. Indirect funding
empowers beneficiaries and eases church-State concerns.
I think these comments show the need for continued progress
and not a change of direction. So I welcome this bill with its
aim of further embedded institutions and principles of the
faith-based initiative into the workings of the Government. But
I would suggest just a few changes.
First of all, the bill should require not merely
departmental liaisons, but actual centers for faith-based and
community initiatives. Centers have authority within their
departments to investigate problems, recommend changes and gain
the cooperation of program officials. A department ought to
regard its center as essential to achieving the department's
mission and not as an outpost to the White House.
Second, I recommend modifications to the bill's equal
treatment principles in Section 7. I think these principles
should apply whether the Federal funds are administered by
Federal, State or local officials. In paragraph 6, I think it
ought to be modified so that participants in voucher-funded
cannot sit out part of a social service, even if that is a
religious part, because their religious liberty is protected by
the choices of a voucher system itself. And the bill ought to
authorize officials to use vouchers as appropriate.
Finally, I think the bill should state that when a Federal
program honors a faith-based organization's Title VII
exemption, its freedom to staff on a religious basis, then a
State and local government cannot restrict that freedom. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carlson-Thies follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Kuo.
STATEMENT OF DAVID KUO
Mr. Kuo. Chairman Souder, distinguished members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify this
afternoon, and thank you for your perseverance in wading
through the not-so-easy areas of religion and politics.
My perspective on the topics we discuss today is informed
by various vantage points on faith, politics and social service
I have had during the past 15 years. I was John Ashcroft's
policy director in the Senate when we wrote Charitable Choice.
I founded and for 3 years built a charitable organization to
objectively determine the efficacy and efficiency of social
service organizations. And for 2\1/2\ years, I served as
special assistant to the President as Deputy Director of the
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President
George W. Bush.
But more than anything, my views are informed by a certain
philosophical perspective. I believe in Government's inviolable
duty to help the poor. This is not just a political philosophy
for me, it is also theology. I believe that Jesus' commands to
care for the least among us means that we have to bring to
social problems every available resource and every best effort.
No country can do that better than America, and no country
needs to do it better than America.
What seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,
a Texas Governor gave one of the great political speeches of
this generation in Indianapolis, IN. In it, Governor George W.
Bush talked about how the promise of America was a distant
dream for too many who were addicted to drugs, dependent on
alcohol and trapped in despair. He said that the answer didn't
lie in trillions of new Washington dollars spent on big
bureaucracy to end poverty as we know it. He also said the
answer didn't lie in shrugging our collective shoulders and
simply letting the private sector handle it, devoid of new
resources.
What America needed to do, he said was to embrace and
generously fund social service organizations, faith-based and
secular, to help hurting Americans. His prescriptions were
straightforward. Certain laws, rules and regulations amounted
to Government-sanctioned discrimination against faith-based
groups. They needed to be changed.
Social service groups needed to know that they were welcome
to apply for funds. At the same time, he added passionately, it
is not enough for conservatives like me to praise charitable
efforts. Without more support and resources, both public and
private, we are asking charities to make bricks without straw.
On that day, he proposed $8 billion per year in new
spending and charitable tax incentives and sent the
unmistakable message that charity, compassion and care for the
poor were to be cornerstones of his domestic policy. A great
deal of what he has envisioned has come to pass. There is a
White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and
there are coordinating centers in most major Federal agencies.
Tens of thousands of people have been educated about how to
apply for Government grants and what they can and cannot do
with those funds if they receive them. Grants have been given
out to scores of different organizations and small pilot
projects to assist children of prisoners, mentoring programs
and drug addicts.
Most importantly, an irreversible message has been sent
across the country. Faith-based groups are fully welcome, fully
legal and absolutely necessary to America's fight against
poverty. Were it not for President Bush's vision, we would not
be meeting here today.
At the same time, the core funding commitment he made in
Indianapolis has not been fulfilled. Four years later, rather
than $32 billion in new spending and tax incentives for the
poor, we have seen at best a few hundred million. There is a
chasm between what was promised and what has been delivered,
and it cannot be glossed over by any new White House reports,
initiatives, policies, conferences, speeches, pronouncements or
purportedly objective data collection intended to make that
failure look better. It can only be bridged by the fulfillment
of the original promise. That promise must still be fulfilled.
The failure to deliver the promised financial support for
the poor lies equally on the executive and the legislative
branches of Government. The White House could certainly have
done more and hopefully will do more to push through needed
funding increases to address record American poverty. But at
least the White House has tried.
From where I sit, I cannot say the same thing about most of
Congress. I have been saddened by widespread congressional
apathy and the desire for political gamesmanship rather than
substantive aid. Why hasn't Congress been the compassionate
advocate on behalf of charities and the poor in the midst of an
economic crisis, a downturn in charitable giving and a dramatic
upturn in social service needs?
When the President announced the creation of the Faith-
Based office in 2001, he was attacked by some Democratic
Members of Congress as trying to destroy the wall of separation
between church and State. Still others said he was simply
trying to create a Bob Jones University America. Other said he
was trying to simply discriminate against racial minorities,
women or members of the GLBT community.
Even when distinguished Members stood up against this
bombast and sided with President Bush, they were threatened by
members of their own caucus that their personal campaign funds
would be cut, someone else would be supported in a primary
against them and that they would have to publicly retract their
support. It seemed like the President's bold support of this
initiative was seen by many as simply a chance to hurt him and
label him as a religious zealot, and the poor were used as
pawns in a greater political game of power.
At the same time, many members of the President's own party
expressed equal parts apathy and antipathy toward this agenda.
Money for the poor? Why, it will just get wasted, they said. We
just need to cut the funds and let the private sector take
over. We don't need more funds, all we really need to do is
make sure that we have a huge political fight over religious
charities' right to hire and fire based on their own faith.
That way, as I have heard time and time again, Republicans will
be seen as fighting for religions and Democrats will be seen as
fighting against it. It is a good fight to have, I heard time
and again, from both Democrats and Republicans.
A good fight for partisanship, perhaps, but less good for
the poor. Some people have said that this is just the way of
modern Washington. We haven't seen the promises fulfilled,
because for the White House, for Democrats, for Republicans,
for liberal and conservative special interest groups, there is
more to be gained by fighting than by solving. I don't believe
that this is true. Everything that hasn't yet been accomplished
can still be accomplished. Funding for things like CBDG can be
returned to their needed levels. The Compassion Capital Fund
can receive the $200 million per year that it was promised,
rather than the $99.5 million over 4 years that it has
received.
Tax incentives to aid the poor can be put in place. There
is no such thing as too late, because there are always lives
that can be helped. Impossible? Hardly. The mere fact that we
are meeting together today demonstrates this subcommittee's
passion for the poor and willingness to stand up to opposition
from those who do not want hearings like this to occur.
I would like to make three specific suggestions for moving
forward before I close. First, the subcommittee should seek to
expand its oversight on the White House Office of Faith-Based
and Community Initiatives. There are important questions that
need to be answered about how decisions are made there
regarding funding, what relationship that office has in
directly controlling the activities of other Federal agencies,
as well as examining the veracity of reports claiming that a
certain amount of money is going to faith-based groups. These
are important matters that need to be examined.
Second, I encourage the subcommittee to begin looking at
information in different ways. To date, charities have been
judged primarily by how well their accountants make it look
like all the money is going to serve targeted populations. Why?
Because that is how efficient charities are judged and ranked
by media like U.S. News and World Report. Unfortunately, this
mindset has prevented us from asking a more important question:
how well? Efficacy is far more important and relative to gauge
than efficiency. We need to begin asking charities and our
Government to tangibly measure how well they are doing their
jobs, not just how efficiently.
Third, do not be distracted by the so-called discrimination
issue. The facts are fairly simple. No one can be discriminated
against when it comes to receiving services. Faith-based groups
have been receiving Federal funds for years and have long ago
learned how to deal with the issue on the ground.
As one woman told us as we scoured the country looking for
examples of groups dogged by religious discrimination issues,
``Honey, if you can't hire someone without asking them their
faith, you're a fool.''
Ultimately, I think that codifying the faith-based
initiative is a good idea, especially if it allows for easier
oversight. But any faith-based initiative success will
ultimately be determined by a White House's commitment.
I want to close again by thanking you, Chairman Souder, and
Representative Cummings, and the subcommittee for continuing to
examine the complex issues surrounding the Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives. The debates are vigorous, and that is
the way it should be.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Polito.
STATEMENT OF BOBBY POLITO
Mr. Polito. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Congressman
Cummings, for inviting me here today.
I would like to try to sum up my comments real quickly, as
I look at the clock. As an Italian, the dinner bell is a loud
one in my family. So I would like us all to get back at a
reasonable hour.
For the last 3 years, I have been the director of the
Faith-Based Office at HHS. And I would like to comment quickly
on process, how does it work at a Federal agency, how does it
work specifically in a very large Federal agency. I want to
come and agree that H.R. 1054 should be enacted for the
purposes of the organizations that we are talking about.
My key role as the director, my staff's key role under me
was to be a beacon of hope in a bureaucracy where groups can go
for questions and get real answers. I remember when I was a
rescue mission director, and I called HUD, I called HHS, I
called everybody to find out what was available for the people
that I served, either direct funds from my organization or
individual subsidies for the people that I served. And I never
got my phone calls answered, I never got an agreement for a
meeting down here in this wonderful city.
So I think just for that purpose alone, if it was just a
place where organizations can make phone calls to, can visit
with, somebody in Washington is going to meet with them and
help them understand hey, there is funding available for what
you do, hey, the things that your drug addicts are struggling
through, there are programs in your city that you can apply for
for them, and help them get over their dependencies.
At our center, we had a game plan. I was a former athlete
in a different life, and we talked about it as an inside game
and an outside game. Our inside game was to try to change the
way the bureaucracy ran, that favored the people that were
already there. Funding questions being answered by, well, let's
just fund the folks that we have always funded, because we
haven't gotten into any trouble lately. And things are going
OK. Sort of status quo stuff.
So we had our inside game. We had internal barriers report
that we showed, some anecdotal information on why groups
couldn't get in, what happened when they did get in, were they
stripped of their religious character, couldn't they hire,
couldn't they do the things that they needed to do. And their
understanding of the problem, as we used to say, on the street.
So that was our inside game, to work with the 65,000 Federal
officers at our department to get them squared away on where we
wanted to go with this program.
Our outside game was in my opinion more important. Because
it opened the Federal doors so that pastors, lay workers,
social workers could come into an office, sit down, have a cup
of coffee and understand what this initiative was all about,
understand what the different program areas we had at HHS, we
had 11 program areas and 300 grants programs.
So if you were doing it, you probably could get funded out
of our department. The problem was that they didn't know, they
didn't know where to go, they didn't know when the RFP was
coming out, they don't read Federal Registers to get
information. So we acted as a beacon.
And if we don't have that moving forward, the people, in my
opinion, who serve the poor the best, the community folks and
the religious folks on the street, I call them street saints,
those folks who walk the street at 3 a.m., and pick up people
and throw them over their shoulder and have a place for them to
go, those folks don't read Federal Registers. And those folks
don't have Government offices in Washington to lobby for them.
So somebody's got to look out for them.
I am afraid that if we don't have this as a practice in our
Government that it would be a flash in the pan. Thank you for
allowing me to share my thoughts with you today. I would love
to answer any questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I have a series of questions. I
first want to thank each of you for your long-time work in this
area. I will try not to call you by your first names, because I
have known most of you for so long.
Let me start with Mr. Kuo. I take issue with a couple of
things in your statement, and I feel compelled to point out in
the record that I believe Congress and the White House both
share blame, and I believe the White House has some things that
are commendable. It is also true that the White House opposed
the Compassion Capital Fund, that the House leadership had to
jam it down their throats. And I don't know what in the world
the White House was doing abandoning something internally when
publicly they were speaking the other way.
And the historical staff record of the people in the
conference from the leadership will show that, and whether the
President was being reflected correctly by his people who are
doing the negotiating is another question. I am not arguing
that the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives took
that position. I am not even arguing that the President himself
took that position. And as you and I both know, and all of you
here know, I have multiple former staffers who are in key
positions, and this is a very awkward hearing for me, because
they are in key positions related to all this kind of stuff. I
have tried to kind of not talk about business sometimes in a
private way, because my job is oversight.
But I have been very disappointed, as have some people
inside the White House, including you, with some of what's
happened. I think a second thing I want to say on this same
part is, were you aware, because I want to establish whether
you were aware of this, it is a fact, that the White House
specifically asked me to hold back on my bill on the $500 tax
credit and additional funding for support of the type Mr.
Polito was just talking about, institutional building, that I
had Bobby Scott on, Chet Edwards on, Jerry Nadler on and Barney
Franks' support, that also had the support of Tom Daschle, and
they asked me to hold back my bill because they wanted to go
after the public funding part, because it was in effect what
would be called Santorum Light, it would have been the tax
credit part in the institutional building, but would have not
had the direct funding? Were you aware that the White House
asked me that?
Mr. Kuo. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I was aware.
Mr. Souder. And that doesn't mean that they wanted to try
to win the public funding part, which is a battle that they
have carried on valiantly and fought over. But we lost our
moment on the tax part. And the truth is, we wouldn't have had
this big debate up here on this panel today and wouldn't have
the continuing debates on the public funding part if we would
have taken that tax credit part, which I don't know if we will
ever get again. Because it was time and tax relief.
The reason I raise both of those, it has been very
disappointing to me, because we were able to broker two-thirds
of the bill. And we also heard today, Mr. Scott said he raised
a different question on the vouchers, he didn't raise the legal
question on the vouchers, he raised the technical follow-
through question on the vouchers. So we have three prongs here
they theoretically we could move forth.
The question is, I think you were accurate in stating, as
we heard some of the opposition to this, the criticisms which I
believe are wrong, but let's not spare the administration in
some of this, too. I know you said you criticized the
administration, but you criticized the Congress more
aggressively. I agree benign neglect on the part of the
majority Congress is correct. But in fact, we had brokered a
compromise that would have moved us substantially, then we
could have continued to fight the public funding. But we lost
the moment.
Mr. Kuo. Mr. Chairman, if I cut back on my commentary on
the White House, it is only because I believe that over the
past several months I have made my position on the White
House's not so benign neglect of this issue, of its political
use of this issue. I thought I had made that clear, and I just
meant in the interest of time to keep that short.
But I agree, Mr. Chairman, with what you said. I was in
part of the conversations in which the discussions came forward
about how to politically handle the bill. Because what happened
ultimately was, this was a political question. There was a
political benefit to not having a bill like yours pass, because
there was great political benefit to be gained by having
issues, by having the religious issues, the hiring issues, the
discrimination issues out there so that we could be on the
right side of these issues for key constituents.
Mr. Souder. And I believe strongly those issues, it is a
great debate to have, and I believe it is an important debate.
I am on the side of the administration on the debate.
But we lost what I felt were the stronger, more winnable
parts in the continuing fight that I don't even know if we can
sustain after President Bush. That is part of the problem here.
We have to have a longer vision than just this Presidency.
Now, you also stated in your testimony, and I actually have
a couple of questions I want to do, but I wanted to get a
couple things on the record here as we are starting. Because I
believe part of our problem, and I believe you said it
eloquently in your testimony, is that we played a zero sum game
with this process. And the zero sum game is a legitimate
debate, who can best effectively deliver public services, and
can the private sector partly do that.
But we argued that we were going to increase the pool of
money for the poor. And in fact, all we have done is fight over
a relatively frozen pool.
Mr. Kuo. A shrinking sum.
Mr. Souder. Particularly in inflation adjusted dollars, in
that has put those of us in an awkward position who argued this
for many years, because we didn't mean it to be a zero sum
game, in that we are now into that. And there, Congress
deserves at least 50 percent of the blame. I am not saying we
don't. Because it is very hard, quite frankly, for some
Republicans to argue putting more dollars into what are
Democratic districts, and then the Democratic Members opposing
the money that was supposed to go to their districts.
But if it is no new money, they have no incentive to come
on board. And our guys didn't want to give them additional
money, and we got into this political logjam that now we are
trying to take apart here in this hearing that in fact has put
the long term range of this program at risk.
Yet a third part of this is, and Mr. Kuo was with this from
early on, from Senator Ashcroft's side as I was doing the work
on the House side, and has worked on this for years, and the
other witnesses here have worked with this for a long time,
both at the grassroots level. But was it not your understanding
when we started this that a lot of the goal here was to reach
the people like Mr. Polito was directly talking about, in that
those were predominantly small Black and Hispanic organizations
in the neighborhood, as my friend Bob Woodson has said for
years, in the zip code, who lived in the zip code.
And how in the world did this program turn into a program
that was a mix of multiple?
Mr. Kuo. A mix of what, sir?
Mr. Souder. Of suburban churches going after it, I mean,
the faith-based initiative is seen so broadly any more, it is
like it is money for faith-based organizations rather than
targeted. It was supposed to be specifically targeted as an
alternative way to delivering goods to the highest risk
population and to getting more dollars there.
I first want to confirm that is what you thought the
initiative was, and that I know this has been an internal
debate in the administration. But those of us who worked for it
for years, in fact, when Steve Goldsmith first sat down with
Senator Santorum and Joe Pitts and I, way back when he was
first committed to then-Governor Bush running for the
Presidency, and said, why is this so hard, we predicted what
the problem was going to be, and that is that the base we were
trying to reach with a program of compassion was not
historically Republican, which meant that in the approach we
were using was not historically Democrat. Therefore, it was
going to be a very difficult sell.
I first wanted to establish on the record that you believe
that is how the Office started. You were there from the
beginning, as was John DeIulio. That was our goal, it was Mike
Gerson's original description when he was with Senator Coates,
in that how, I first want to establish that is what the thrust
of the program was conceived.
Mr. Kuo. My understanding of the President's compassion
conservative vision as first laid out in the Duty of Hope
speech, was that his fundamental approach to poverty was to
embrace social service organizations, including faith-based
organizations. As a fundamental part of his approach to dealing
with the poor, with the addicts, with those needing welfare,
needing job training and so forth and so on was to include
faith-based groups.
Within that was a $200 million per year commitment for the
Compassion Capital Fund. The Compassion Capital Fund was to be
aimed specifically at small organizations that Bobby talked
about, that you just referred to, the ones on the ground, the
ones like Bob Woodson has dealt with for decades. That was what
it was intended for. It was never intended or designed to go to
large institutions that would hold conferences and talk about
this some more and fly people across the country and bring them
together for roundtable discussions. This was never the idea
behind the Compassion Capital Fund.
Mr. Souder. I have a concern. I have worked with several
Black pastors' groups in my home town who have organized around
the way that we originally said, they pulled together multiple
churches, they have gone to the Chicago conference, they have
gone to other conferences. I have sent multiple members of my
staff to the different conferences, and what Mr. Polito
described of being a way like we do for small contractors to
figure out Federal contracting, quite frankly, neither my staff
nor the individuals who went for the conferences can figure it
out. Nor can they figure out how to do it. The question is,
why?
And the questions we heard today about, were there inside
deals, is on the street on almost every city in the country. We
have done hearings across the country. There is a tremendous
frustration among grassroots groups about who gets invited to
what, about how decisions are made.
I want to ask a couple of technical questions for the
record, and I am going to ask one other thing, just so we
aren't here all night, that because you all are a fount of
information and we aren't allowed to have any White House
witnesses. Mr. Towey was willing to come but was told he
couldn't come, and others, that we may do a written form of
some question and answer to try to draw out a more historic
thing here than we have hours to do tonight, both on the legal
questions that we heard earlier today, how the offices were
structured. Because this will be a good hearing record of the
process.
But I raise the importance of oversight. You all addressed
it. To what degree were the centers in the agency managed
directly by the White House, for example, did the White House
control the Compassion Capital Fund or did the agencies?
Mr. Kuo. I do not think that it is possible to give a
blanket answer to that. But I think that if you are going to
apply a legal test, preponderance of the evidence would suggest
that the bulk of the Compassion Capital Fund was either
controlled by the White House Faith-Based Office or was
attempted to be controlled by the White House Faith-Based
Office. I think Mr. Polito would probably----
Mr. Souder. I am going to ask him the same question.
Mr. Kuo. That would be my answer, that the fundamental
desire from the moment--there is a history of the office that
is important to bring into context here. One is, there is the
office that existed from January or February 2001 basically
through September 11th. That was when John DeJulio was there,
Stanley was there, I was there for part of that time.
Then in early 2002, when Jim Towey came on, it was a
fundamentally different office. It was run differently, and it
was run differently because there were different things at
stake. The first stage had been a research phase, to come up
with the Unlevel Playing Field report that Stanley wrote.
But then when it came to implementation and there were some
dollars on the table, it became a different operation. It also
became a different operation because the office itself had been
essentially demoted. John DeJulio had come on as an intimate of
the President. He was an assistant to the President, the
proximity of the Faith-Based Office, it was nicely positioned
in the Old Executive Office Building. It was sent outside the
White House gates to Jackson Place. So when Jim Towey came on,
there was a different dynamic that I think is important to
understand here.
So the desire was, our desire internally was to prove the
viability of the office. And one of the best ways to prove the
viability of the office is to control, frankly, the only thing
that existed out of the President's faith-based initiative
promises, which were $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, $40
million in the Compassion Capital Fund.
So in 2002, as Mr. Polito will talk about, it was run
largely through the Faith-Based Office. There were grantees who
were eliminated from the list, for specific reasons. So the
answer is yes on that. But there was a huge back and forth
fight between HHS and the White House. It was a fairly ugly
thing.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Polito, would you agree it was a fairly
ugly thing, and this is on top of the OMB management?
Mr. Polito. Well, David is right, the Compassion Fund was
the first thing out of the gate. We were able to establish
three new programs in 3 years. The Compassion Fund was first at
about $30 million. The Mentoring Children of Prisoners was
second at $10 million, I believe, and now brought up to about
$50 million. Last, the Access to Recovery program.
Everybody was real open to including everybody's view on
how new programs should run, how they should look, who should
be getting the money, how it should be structured. The
Compassion Fund, for example, because of the nature of the
largeness of the Federal bureaucracy, even grants go out in
large sizes. So we wanted to really get to your question about
how do we get to the small, and requiring these big
organizations to give a sub-grant out. I believe the testimony
earlier by Congressman Green was 1,700, I don't know the exact
number off the top of my head. But 1,700 small, little
community-based, faith-based, non-faith-based groups got 1,700
small little grants.
So that was the agreed-upon way of getting to the small
guy. And I think because it wasn't what everybody asked for, it
became the focus, at times became the only thing the initiative
had to talk about.
But I think over time, including this data collection that
we have now, we can see that the initiative is larger than the
Compassion Fund. More religious groups are getting money out of
the Community Health Center grant than the Compassion Fund
Grant, for an example. So to label this the President's
initiative is the Compassion Fund and that's it and if you
didn't get Compassion Fund money you didn't get faith-based
money and--we have been trying to dispel that in my whole
tenure.
If you are a faith-based group and you run a community
health center, there is a grant for that, let me help you, show
you where the RFP is, let me introduce you to current grantees
who can help you with the process. Let me tell you about if
there are any conferences coming up. Not ``you need to get into
this Compassion Fund.''
So on the new programs, sure, there was a lot of
discussion, too much focus on the new programs coming online,
not enough focus on the established programs that are there
using the faith-based representatives that are already there,
Catholic Charities, the Lutheran Social Services, to teach the
smaller guys on how to get into this process. So sure, there
were times where it wasn't the most fun.
Mr. Souder. I want to introduce into the record the
Snapshots of Compassion, and also ask you two more questions.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Souder. One, you were asked to collect data on
grantmaking. Can you give us some idea of how much time you
spent, whether that was useful, how we might look at fixing
that. And the second is, do you work to evaluate the planned
State and local government cooperation and did you do a report
on that, when was it complete, and did you get any good
information on that?
Mr. Polito. Sure. The data collection, in my opinion,
should have always been driven by OMB. They do that well on
everything else. And having center directors and interns in our
offices looking down sheets and saying faith-based, not faith-
based, was insane. And I think there could be a better process.
My opinion is it should be a directive from OMB, the way
that they direct TANF on how many case loads there are, or
community health centers, how many people were served.
Community health centers get funded by the amount of people
that they serve. So it is not new to the Federal Government to
count this kind of stuff. It just was a bizarre way of doing
that.
The second question?
Mr. Souder. State and local, did you have that analysis?
Mr. Polito. State and local. We did a report on that.
Stanley actually helped us on that, did a great job on helping
us on that report. I believe since my departure that report has
been printed and can, I'm sure you can obtain a copy of that
report through the Secretary or through the mechanisms at the
department. The department owns that document, and it was our
department's idea for the initiative that's the next new thing
that we really need to address, is how do we really get into
State and local funding. We counted 80 percent of our funds go
out in block grants.
So to focus on a $50 million Compassion Fund or even 20
percent discretionary funding, let's look at the 80 percent of
block grant funding and see what we can do to influence the
process of who gets that money, how that money is disbursed,
helping our small, local folks understand that process and
point them in those directions, training State and local
administrators, TANF officials, for example, on how they could
encourage smaller players and faith-based players into that
process I think is where this initiative really needs to go
next.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I will have a couple more followup.
I will yield to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. This is a very interesting line of
questioning. I am trying to figure out, let me break it down
another way. Let's say I am an African-American church, have
5,000, 6,000 members, I am not presently in the drug treatment
area, but I hear about money available and I come to you. What
happens there? I mean, I call there trying to figure out--what
would happen?
Mr. Polito. I would invite you, if you are from Baltimore,
I would either invite you to come down to my office and we
could have it out, talk it through, or I could send somebody to
Baltimore to do a site visit. We have done that at times. Most
of the time, if people are in town, we would meet with them. We
pretty much help the organizations decipher what they do and
who do they serve. If you can answer those two questions, I can
tell you about a grant that's available. What do you do, who do
you serve.
Mr. Cummings. What about what will I do? Because don't
forget, what I have said is, it is a person that they aren't
even in it yet. They hear about this money and they know that
the money is out there. So they say, well, let me see if I can
get some of this flowing to my church, or----
Mr. Polito. I understand what you are saying. Most churches
in that capacity, a 5,000 member African-American church does
stuff other than church. And a lot of that stuff is fundable at
our level. You don't have to create a new program to get
funded. That would be my posture with you, what do you do
already and who do you serve, do you serve TANF-eligible
clients, do you serve single moms, do you serve AIDS victims,
who do you serve. Because I want them to show me their
experience in doing that, and then I will give them, they will
leave with an understanding of how to apply, who to apply to
and when to apply.
Mr. Cummings. All right, now, let's take it, I want to get
to the 1,700 folks, and folks that I think Mr. Souder--I don't
know, I am trying to figure out, he talked about smaller. You
talked about smaller, you are talking about the 1,700 smaller
churches. Now, we have that one church, they are in business,
they get a nice grant. And then three smaller churches, in my
district there is a church on almost every corner. So they hear
about the big church, they want to be like the big church.
So then they get together, the four or five other churches
and they say, look, we know you just gave the big church some
money, how do we get money, because we want to be like the big
church. What I am getting to is this subcontracting concept
that you just talked about. I had never even heard of that.
Explain that to me.
Mr. Polito. OK. In the Compassion Fund, it was decided by
lots of different folks that we would fund large, what we call
intermediaries or go-betweens to then sub-grant out to the
small guys. So in a sense, the large church would get the block
of the money, but it was mandated that they give away half of
it to smaller churches. They would run a competition program
that we would approve on how they are going to disburse out
that money. Because we didn't think quickly, at least in the
first year, we didn't think that those small storefront
churches would be successful in applying for a large Federal
grant.
Mr. Cummings. And who was training those small churches?
Mr. Polito. That big church. That's what we paid them to
do, to train them, to give them a sub-grant and then eventually
help them go get the grant for themselves.
Mr. Cummings. And so who would measure their progress? In
other words, most Government things, there is some kind of
measurement. How was their progress measured? One of the things
that I have seen is people who have gotten Federal money go to
prison--let me finish--when they didn't do what they were
supposed to do with the money. Now, where is the accountability
in that formula? Is it the big church? Is it still within the
Federal Government? Where is the accountability coming in?
Mr. Polito. The program sits under the administration for
Children and Families. It sits in a program office, not the
White House, not the Secretary's office, so that it could run
like all the other programs at ACF. So Wade Horn and his staff
have Federal accountability over those programs, and they run
those programs the same way they run all the other programs.
But they hold first the large group accountable and then
the smaller group accountable, because their relationship is
with the big group.
Mr. Cummings. OK, now, I guess it was Mr. Kuo, when the
decisions go down with regard to whether these--it seems that
there has been some targeting toward Black churches, is that
right, would you agree with that?
Mr. Kuo. Explain what you mean.
Mr. Cummings. African-American churches, in other words,
trying to appeal to African-American churches, that is with
these faith-based efforts. Come on, Mr. Kuo, now, please.
Mr. Kuo. The answer----
Mr. Cummings. Please, sir, I have been an elected official
for a long time. I see what is happening. You know what is
happening.
Mr. Kuo. Excuse me?
Mr. Cummings. Let me tell you. I will tell you what's
happening, just in case you don't know.
Mr. Kuo. Why don't you let me answer the question first,
sir?
Mr. Cummings. OK, you acted like you didn't know what I was
talking about.
Mr. Kuo. No, sir, I know what you are talking about.
Mr. Cummings. Oh, all right.
Mr. Kuo. What you asked is, the implicit question you are
asking is, did the White House hand out money to Black churches
to buy votes. That is really what you are asking. The answer
is, no.
Mr. Cummings. That is not what I was asking.
Mr. Kuo. The White House, what we set out to do in the
Office, sir, was to try and educate, we tried to do whatever we
could given the extraordinarily tight parameters that we had.
Because the fact of the matter was, very few people in the West
Wing cared a jot or tittle about this initiative. The biggest
press this got was when Members of your caucus, Members of the
Democratic Party, critics like Americans United for Separation
of Church and State, would launch these large attacks against
it saying how much was being done, how radical it was, how
really crazy it all was.
And we would laugh, because in the Office, we know how
little was being done. We started a set of conferences around
the country, because it was one way that we could go and try
and fulfill the President's vision. And the President's vision,
as Bobby just talked about, was to try and educate small social
service organizations about how to apply for Government funds.
Now, we were specifically targeting organizations that
served people who were drug addicts, who were alcoholics, who
needed job training, who did day care, who did mentoring for
children of prisoners. Fortunately, most of the people who do
that are people of faith. Because they are the ones who are
motivated to do it. Most of the ones who do that well happen to
be African-American churches and Hispanic churches.
That just happens to be the demographic. This was not done
intentionally to reach out to African-American or Hispanic
churches. It was done because those are the organizations that
serve those populations.
Mr. Cummings. Well, did it make, was it a big deal when
suddenly an African-American pastor of a large church, just
before the election, comes around who used to be a head
Democrat, now decides to, he just so happened to get a
substantial grant, by the way, so now he decides that he is
going to be, have a conversion and become the No. 1 person for
the President?
Mr. Kuo. Of course that has political appeal. We live in
Washington, right? Pure motives are really hard to find. Every
politician that I know of does something that they think is
right, but they are happy that there are political benefits
that happen because of it.
Mr. Cummings. So you are saying that is one of the reasons
for the program?
Mr. Kuo. Was it one of the reasons for the program, was it
for political benefit?
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Mr. Souder. For the record, he already said that some
people used it for political benefit. But that is different
than saying why the program was created.
Mr. Cummings. I understand.
Mr. Kuo. I do not believe, to the core of my being, that
this program was created for political benefit.
Mr. Cummings. But it turned out to be, to be political
benefit?
Mr. Kuo. There were political benefits that were derived.
Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. And what I was asking you for, what I was
asking you is that you said that the White House, it didn't
mean a hill of beans, whatever you said, a tick or whatever,
what did you say? I had never heard that term.
Mr. Kuo. Jot or tittle.
Mr. Cummings. Jot or tittle.
Mr. Kuo. It is technically in the Bible.
Mr. Cummings. Oh, OK. All right. A jot or tittle.
Mr. Kuo. King James Version. [Laughter.]
Mr. Cummings. King James Version, all right. Amen.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Kuo. He speaketh correctly.
Mr. Cummings. Anyway, what I am asking you is, then that
must have meant something to somebody in the White House. You
said it turned out that they had political advantage, you get
this pastor, Sunday before election, who has never supported a
Republican, he jumps and says, I love the President, support
him, I've had this conversion. In other words, did you get any
brownie points, I guess, in your Office?
Mr. Kuo. I left the White House in December 2003.
Mr. Cummings. Do you think you would have gotten some?
Mr. Kuo. We left the White House in December 2003. I can
tell you that the West Wing was more pleased with White House
conferences that went out and talked to tens of--or brought in
tens of thousands of people than it was with any other single
thing that we did.
Now, if you go and you look at where those conferences were
held, I think you will get some sense of the answer, because a
lot of those conferences were held in States like Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Missouri, and the ones that were not held in
those States were held in places like Boston, because you could
hit both Maine and New Hampshire at the same time. [Laughter.]
So the answer is, yes, there was a political benefit to be
derived. But here is the other fact, which is, every major
urban center was targeted with these conferences. It would be
really easy, I think all of us want to be able to say, it is
all this or it is all that. It is all good or it is all bad. I
wrestled for a year and half with whether to say anything at
all. I want to be able to say yes or no. I can't.
Mr. Cummings. I understand. Is it Polito?
Mr. Polito. Correct.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Polito, going back to what you did, what
I am confused about, I am trying to figure out, so in today's
world, there would be an advantage, you talked about these
little organizations, small churches that may not have had the
expertise to do certain things, right? You talked about that.
And that is one of the reasons why you felt that you all were
significant to them.
Mr. Polito. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Well, I have a whole lot of organizations in
my district that are not faith-based that would love to have an
opportunity to get involved in some of these things. Do we have
comparable programs for them? In other words, if I called you
and I said, look, I am not a faith-based guy, I am an atheist,
say somebody called and said, I am an atheist. But I want to do
some drug counseling. What would you do then?
Mr. Polito. I would honestly, sir, ask the same two
questions that I ask the pastor: who do you serve and what do
you do. And if you can answer those two questions, I can direct
you to the Federal grant at HHS that does that. I could tell
you the day and time it comes out that you have to apply to it,
I could tell you the three conferences around the country that
those bureaucratic career staff run those conferences to get
people to come so they can learn.
The problem with the atheist or the church, if they are not
a player in Washington, if they do not have a Government
relations office here, or if they do not read the Federal
Register every day, they do not know that stuff. And the
Federal Government has not been very good about announcing that
stuff. So that was the value that I saw in my office, was to be
a place where somebody, anybody could walk in and say, this is
who I serve, this is what I do, is there any assistance for a
group like that in this bureaucracy, and I would be able to
answer that question for them.
Mr. Cummings. And so would that person, the person who was
a faith-based organization, with the faith-based organization,
they would have to some degree, some advantage I guess, because
there is supposedly some money set aside, is that supposed to
be?
Mr. Polito. No. That is the big mystery, that there has
never been any money set aside----
Mr. Cummings. And that is the interesting thing, because
that is what people think.
Mr. Polito. Right.
Mr. Cummings. That is what people think. The question
becomes, who put that out there?
Mr. Polito. I don't know.
Mr. Cummings. Because let me tell you something. Let me
tell you. Everywhere I go, people say, gee, that was really
nice of the President to put all that extra money out there for
faith-based. I am assuming that is not just falling from the
sky.
Mr. Kuo. May I respond, sir?
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Mr. Kuo. The answer is, the White House has put that out
there. Now, earlier, I believe it was Representative Owens who
said, there's $2 billion or $3 billion now going to faith-based
groups. Earlier, Representative Green said that's a 20 percent
increase from year over year. The problem is, the data on which
that is based would not stand up to any scrutiny. The reason
that we tasked Bobby Polito and the other centers to come up
with data was to cover ourselves, because the President's
promise of $8 billion a year in new spending and tax incentives
had not come through and because we wanted to have a figure
that was out there.
Now, the reason that the figure is out there now is because
no one had ever asked it before. We still do not know how
accurate those figures are. Those figures are not very
accurate.
But the point is that in talking to any number of social
scientists, any number of people who have looked at the field
of faith-based initiatives the last 20 years, they say, well,
probably the $2 billion or $3 billion figure that they came up
with this year, that is probably lower than it was 10 years ago
or 15 years ago, simply because the pot of money is smaller.
Mr. Souder. Let me add something to that. When I was
Republican staff director of the Children and Family Committee
years ago, in the early 1980's, we had a staffer, Dr. Jim
Gimple, who now teaches at the University of Maryland, who went
through the Hobbes Report. Everybody acts like this stuff is
new. But Hobbes had looked at this under Reagan, when he was
Governor of California, and when he came to Washington, he
looked at the private sector groups. They put out 100 groups
that were supposedly free of Government that were doing
charitable work, mostly faith-based.
But it is faith-based and community organizations,
Congresswoman Watts had asked the question earlier, why is
community in there. Well, that is why. It is a Compassion
Capital Fund for faith-based and community-based organizations.
It isn't just faith-based.
But when he went through, he found that 33 percent of the
people in Hobbes' report got more than half the funding from
Government sources, Federal and State. Even back in the early
1980's. So while there are wrinkles to today, there has been so
much political spinning it is hard to get down here and figure
out how to do a bill, how to sustain this. Because it has
actually been part of the U.S. Government for a long time.
Yes, we have a battle over one sub-part of should churches
that only hire inside their faith be part of this program. But
that is different than whether there should be a program----
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Mr. Souder [continuing]. And how it is set up and how we
reach minority groups that are too small.
And I could add one more thing. One of my frustrations, and
I want to make sure before we close this panel that Dr.
Carlson-Thies can respond to this, about at the State and local
level and the Federal level, we do this in other categories. In
SBA, when I was a graduate student, through SCORE and though a
program through graduate business schools, we went out, when
people would apply to Small Business Administration for loans,
we as graduate students would go out and do an analysis.
The SCORE centers are retired executives who go out and do
analyses. We have small business centers in the urban areas
where they will share a phone, where they will have the
information books with which to go and help small businesses
seek grants, that when we do defense contracting, in my area we
have set this up for defense contractors, because it is hard to
figure out defense contracting.
Why has there not been a sub-structure of setting up for
social service agencies pooled centers, like incubation
centers, where there is information, where it is free, it does
not depend on who you know, it is public, it is there, anybody
can have access to it. Because right now, when we were doing
these field hearings, up until our second to last one in Los
Angeles, we didn't even discover the main intermediary
organizations that you were working through, the big one in
Philadelphia, the Hispanic group there. And there was one in
Colorado.
It took us a year and a half with professional staff, with
me knowing the subject for 20 years, to figure out the pattern.
Now, how in the world is somebody on the street going to figure
out this pattern unless there is a substructure that is set up
that is gradual? Yes, we do not have enough money to do it
rapidly.
But a substructure that is set up much like we do other
categories of Government to encourage, I mean, that's how we
had the $1,000 toilets and the $500 hammers, because only a few
people who were traditionally bidding did it. Unless you can
get more people bidding to do drug treatment, unless you can
get more people who are bidding to do juvenile delinquency, it
is just like Reverend Rivers says, you can tell who is getting
it, because they come in, into the urban center, and leave at
5:30. Because if you only have one or two people bidding, then
you are not going to have this diversity. It doesn't mean that
you are going to get the money.
But what Mr. Polito is saying is, we need more basically
bidders. The more bidders we get, the better services we will
get, because you will have less overhead and less corruption.
Mr. Cummings. I've got you.
Mr. Kuo. Mr. Chairman, if I might?
Mr. Cummings. Go ahead, please.
Mr. Kuo. If I might also add, there is a need for more
bidders, but there is the objective need for a significant
influx of funds. Because the core argument that Governor Bush
made was that this conservatism was not going to be the leave
us alone coalition, we don't need a social safety net, it was
not going to be the Government can solve it all. It was going
to say, we need more money, but we need it to go to the best
groups.
Again, this 1,700 group figure, the amount of money these
1,700 groups got, what, $5,000, $10,000? We are not talking
about very large sums of money here. We have very tiny sums of
money. For political purposes, it sounds great for the White
House to have $3 billion out there, 1,700 groups out there, it
sounds good, it looks like all of this stuff is being done. And
the sad part about it is that everybody who works in the Faith-
Based Office is sad about it. The Faith-Based office has done
an extraordinary job working against the White House.
Mr. Souder. Dr. Carlton-Thies has something to say about
it.
Mr. Cummings. Please.
Mr. Carlton-Thies. If I may just say one or two things. I
believe that long before the centers and the White House
started counting the number of dollars, in their inaccurate
way, there was this rumor around about money floating out
there. I think it is partly because, when you start talking
about faith-based groups have been excluded, now there is going
to be an effort to include faith-based and also community
groups, then everybody says, well, what does that mean. Well,
everybody thinks that must mean, you create a budget for them,
to include them.
But instead, this was an effort to make sure that in
existing programs they would have a fair shake. But that
doesn't sound very interesting to very many people. So I
continually got asked by reporters about the $80 million or $50
billion or whatever that supposedly was out there. So that
rumor has been around for a long time. It is because of a
certain conception of what this is all about, that it is
targeted money for religion, that I think is inaccurate.
When it comes to counting, one of the reasons why it has
been difficult, I think, is because early on, when we talked,
the Faith-Based Office talked with OMB about getting some
statistics, we realized that the Government does not ask
organizations if they are faith-based or not. So we thought,
one thing we could do is try to devise some definition, because
everybody wants to know how much money goes to faith-based
organizations.
But any definition that anybody talked about was so legally
problematic. That is to say, there was a worry on the part of
OMB and I think the White House and certainly the White House
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, that if grant
managers could identify the groups that were faith-based who
were applying, they would either steer money toward them if
they were favorable or steer it away if they were against them,
and that would not be a good thing for the competitive process.
So an effort to draw up a definition of faith-based that
could be used to gather statistics was turned down in 2001. So
the consequence is that interns sit around and look at the
names of organizations and say, well, this one must be
religious, this one isn't. And they are bogus numbers. But it
is partly for Constitutional reasons, that is to say that the
Government ought not to be going out there and selecting out
faith-based groups to give them money. So we do not know if
they are faith-based or not in any reliable way.
Mr. Cummings. So therefore, making statements that we have
given X amount of dollars to faith-based organizations sounds,
just based on what you just said, it has to be inaccurate,
because basically what you have said is it is impossible to
count.
Mr. Carlson-Thies. I would say it is not probably a proper
question to ask in any case. Because if the faith-based
applicant is a great competitor, they ought to get the money,
and if they are not, they should not.
Mr. Cummings. But my point is a much higher point than what
you just made. What I am saying is that there is this
perception out there, numbers have been thrown out, this is the
first time I have ever heard of the 1,700. You could come in
here and say, look, we have serviced 10,000. And if there was
no way to even know that they were faith-based organizations,
what my point is, how could you even make the assertion? That's
all.
Mr. Carlson-Thies. Although I think the 1,700 applied to
the mini-grants that have been given to small organizations.
Mr. Polito. We could count that. We could count that. We
can count how many mini-grants went out. That is not hard to
count.
Mr. Cummings. What do these people do with $5,000? I'm
sorry?
Mr. Polito. These are small grants for capacity building,
buy a computer, get some training so that you could figure out
the grant system, improve your management structures. These
were not operating grants, by and large, to provide services.
These were to buildup the capacity of the organization.
Mr. Cummings. So these were not operating grants. Some
people went out and bought some computers.
Mr. Polito. They increased their capacity to be able to
offer services.
Mr. Cummings. Say that again?
Mr. Polito. They increased their capacity to be able to
offer services. They could now better compete for private
funds, Government funds, they could run their programs
according to Federal standards because they had better
accounting, things like that.
Mr. Souder. One of the problems you have with a lot of
street organizations is little churches and little community
organizations, unlike big suburban churches, often don't have
CPAs there, they do not have attorneys there, they don't even
know what books are there. Part of it is just to do capacity
building.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Souder didn't know this, Mr. Souder, my
mother pastored a church that started off with seven people. So
I know about small churches. [Laughter.]
Mr. Souder. My church had 100 in it, and I thought I was a
big church.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Foxx, do you have any questions for this
panel?
Ms. Foxx. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I want to thank particularly Mr. Kuo, if your
wife was watching, she might have had the baby just watching us
question you. But I know she's overdue and I appreciate your--
--
Mr. Kuo. I kept the phone on. [Laughter.]
Mr. Souder. Thank each of you. We will be doing some
followup written questions and probably verbal questions. This
has been a fascinating discussion, a very challenging question
as we try to move ahead with this and make sure that the whole
concept has legs. Thank you all for your years of service in
this.
We will go to the third panel. Thank you all for your
patience.
If you will all please stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
Once again, I appreciate your patience, and we are going to
start with Mr. Gregg Petersmeyer, vice chairman, Board of
Trustees, at America's Promise, and also served on the senior
White House staff under George H.W. Bush, Bush 41, and was the
founding person of the original Points of Light Office. Thank
you for your years of leadership in public and community
service.
STATEMENTS OF GREGG PETERSMEYER, VICE CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF
TRUSTEES, AMERICA'S PROMISE; BOB WOODSON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD ENTERPRISE; DENNIS GRIFFITH, DIRECTOR,
TEEN CHALLENGE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA; RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN,
DIRECTOR, RELIGIOUS ACTION CENTER OF REFORM JUDAISM; AND
REVEREND C. WELTON GADDY, PRESIDENT, INTERFAITH ALLIANCE
STATEMENT OF GREGG PETERSMEYER
Mr. Petersmeyer. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you very
much for inviting me to testify.
My remarks and experience relate to the value of a
permanent White House office on community initiatives, not in
any way limited to faith-based initiatives. I look forward to
responding to your questions, but first I would like to offer a
brief opening statement framing two issues that I believe are
relevant to your consideration of a permanent White House
office.
First, if the current President and his two immediate
predecessors are guides, it is safe to say that the future
Presidents will bring their own perspectives to this work.
However, I believe we can frame useful principles that might
underpin a permanent White House office focused on community
initiative.
Second, with respect to Presidential leadership in this
area, I believe it is useful to think about the President more
in his role as national leader than as Federal leader. By that,
I mean primarily as a leader of the Nation rather than as Chief
Executive of the Federal Government.
When I came to Washington to join the White House staff in
January 1989, I had known the President for almost 20 years and
had every reason to believe that he shared several fundamental
beliefs with me. One was that America is a Nation of
communities. And if America is to be a great Nation, it has no
choice but to be a Nation of great communities.
A second belief was that within the tens of thousands of
communities that make up America, very, very serious challenges
exist. Last, we believe that while the ability to overcome
these challenges far exceeds the capacity of Government alone,
and even Government in combination with market forces, it does
not exceed our national capacity, the potential energy and
talent of millions upon millions of Americans of all ages,
acting purposefully both as individuals and as leaders and
members of organizations in every community across America.
This speaks more about what kind of Nation we are and more
about the quality of the American civilization than about what
kind of government we have.
Following his inauguration in January 1989, the only two
structural changes President Bush made in the organization of
the White House were to establish a White House office to
strengthen the President's leadership of the civic engagement
of Americans in the Nation's problemsolving, and to commission
an assistant to lead that work. The objective of that new
office, and my work as that assistant to the President, was to
increase the volume and effectiveness of the work of citizens
in helping to solve serious social problems in the tens of
thousands of communities that exist across America.
The actual strategy that the first Bush White House used
was a classic strategy of a movement. The focus was the public
beyond Washington, not office holders within the Federal
Government. The strategy had five parts. First, changing
attitudes in ways that would call every American to engage in
helping to solve our most critical social problems and that
would convince all Americans that a life which includes serving
others is meaningful, adventurous and successful.
Second, identifying what works and bringing that news to
places everywhere. Third, discovering, encouraging and
developing leaders from all walks of life who could lead by
example and lead others forward. Fourth, reducing volunteer
liability so that one of the key fears of engaging in voluntary
activities would not have a deterrent effect on people acting
on the call they heard to help others.
And finally, building supporting infrastructure within
every community to link people who care and their institutions
to people in need. To carry out this strategy, new or reformed
institutions were necessary. As you can see in my prepared
statement on exhibit A, we created four institutions during
that 4-year period: The White House Office of National Service
in 1989; the Points of Light Foundation in 1990; the Commission
on National and Community Service in 1991; and the National
Center for Community Risk Management and Insurance in 1992. The
four institutions were unified by a common vision, but had
individual missions and distinct strategies and programs that
together worked to achieve that shared vision.
If the current President and his two immediate predecessors
are guides, I think it is safe to assume that, as I said, they
will bring their own perspectives to this work. I believe,
however, that the beliefs which guided the establishment of the
first White House Office on National Service and the principles
which comprised the movement-based strategy we developed should
be included among the underpinning principles of future
initiatives. I believe a permanent White House Office should
reflect the fact that the vast majority of Americans support
the best contributions of each of the last three Presidents of
the United States and the Congress in this area.
However, most important of all, in considering a permanent
White House office, I would argue, is that the President has
two important domestic roles to help the Nation achieve key
objectives. One role is to be the Chief Executive of the
Federal Government. The other is to be the leader of the
Nation. The establishment of this office would help the
President fulfill this second role.
Rather than being focused on the capacity of the Federal
Government to create programs to assist communities, former
President Bush's work in this area was focused on the capacity
of individuals and organizations across the Nation to create
and advance their own community-based solutions. That is what I
mean by the President acting more in his capacity as the leader
of the Nation, rather than as leader of the Federal Government.
It was about calling everyone to think differently about
themselves and one another, about making room for people to
step forward, about leading one another by example, about
recognizing that every problem is being solved somewhere, about
honoring people in the application of their personal gifts for
the benefit of others. It is part of why we used the Point of
Light metaphor and instituted the first daily recognition
program by a President in American history.
Far from preaching to people about what they should do,
which of course nobody likes or responds well to, this tactic
sought to influence by example, to encourage everyday Americans
to reveal to one another what is possible by the evidence of
their own experience. This was the strategy because it is the
only way to really build the volume of people working, to
discovering and releasing the human energy required to actually
solve some of the most pressing challenges facing tens of
thousands of communities.
At the very time when there was ever-increasing focus on
credentialism and the need for more professionals, ours was a
strategy that called for far more amateurs to step forward and
help. There is simply no other way for us as a Nation or as a
people to reach the volume of community engagement that is
necessary to overcome our challenges.
I believe that the power of culture has far more influence
than that of politics on the behavior of individuals in
communities. Every President can and should play the
indispensable role of helping the culture define one of the
most powerful ideas there is; namely, what it means to live a
successful life. It will always be all the more powerful if
that definition is framed by the President to include serving
others, and if the President calls relentlessly on all people,
wherever they live, to serve others to the best of their
ability.
That is why in the very early days of the former
President's Presidency, I drafted for him a sentence that by
President Bush's own admission he publicly stated more than any
other during his Presidency; namely this: ``From now on in
America, any definition of a successful life must include
serving others.''
I would close by offering a final comment. At a time of
deep partisanship in this city, with no change in sight,
community initiatives is a dimension of American life that
could hold the greatest promise for bringing us together. I
know that the American people who live in the tens of thousands
of communities of this country believe we can all do much
better as a Nation and as a people in working together in our
communities.
I look forward to responding to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Petersmeyer follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Our next witness is Mr. Bob Woodson,
president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise.
I want to make a brief statement about him at this point,
because it illustrates several things. When I first came to
Washington with the Children and Family Committee and heard
about some of his work, and he treated me with moderate disdain
and basically said, you are not going to be another one of
these guys who comes in here and pronounces on the problems of
our urban centers and does not look for the good stories. You
need to go out and see the success stories. I said, OK,
introduce me.
And I think the particular word was, don't be another White
guy who sits on his duff pronouncing what's going on in our
urban centers. [Laughter.]
The challenge there, there are a couple of interesting
things about that. That was 1985, nearly 20 years ago, meaning
this stuff is not brand new, this debate, and that you have
been working with it a long time. Second, even as Mr.
Petersmeyer came in, this was before the Points of Light. In
effect, you didn't tell Points of Light, he said, go find the
Points of Light and build that.
And as we look at how we are going to continue this and
work through it, I first wanted to pay tribute to you and also
illustrate in several ways that what we are debating today, as
we heard from the first witnesses and we are about to hear
again, this is kind of old news. What we are doing is packaging
it in new forms.
STATEMENT OF BOD WOODSON
Mr. Woodson. Thank you, Congressman. Let me also say that
you are a breath of fresh air in this Congress, one of the few
people over here that puts principles above party and ideals
above ideology. I want to applaud you for that, and I am
honored to have an opportunity to present my testimony.
The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, which I
founded 23 years ago, we have served about and trained about
2,000 grassroots leaders in 39 States, dating back to 1981. We
are deeply supportive of the President's faith-based
initiative. You know that in the history of it, in 1994, the
104th Congress convened and asked the National Center to bring
the views and opinions of grassroots leaders to the table. It
was based upon this that the Community Renewal Act was signed
into law by President Clinton.
In June 1995, the Texas Teen Challenge chapter was attacked
by the State regulators under then-Governor Bush. We were able
to reach the Governor with our concerns, and as a consequence,
he convened a task force to look at barriers to faith-based
organizations. Within 6 months, he signed into law a rule that
exempted the 200 faith-based drug and alcohol treatment
programs in the State of Texas from State law.
None of those groups received a dime of State money. But
the State was still trying to regulate them out of business
because they didn't have trained professionals as drug
counselors, they were using ex-drug addicts as counselors, and
they were, as one evaluator from the State said, what you're
doing is better than anybody than I have seen, but you're doing
it the wrong way. [Laughter.]
So the deal that was cut then is that the Teen Challenge
and the other groups would not compete for State funds, so they
were not interested in the money, they just wanted government
off their backs. So we offered this advice later on to then-
candidate Bush, and as a consequence, we were there at the
beginning of the Faith-Based Office.
But as someone we were, however, most disappointed in, the
thrust of the Office when they emphasized grants. I would
cringe every time I would hear the President speak of the
faith-based initiatives as an attempt to get Government money
directly into faith-based organizations.
This was not the reason that we came to the table. What we
wanted Government to do was use the bully pulpit to end the
discrimination that not only Government has toward faith-based
groups but also corporations. I have spoken to about 1,000
heads of foundations and corporate giving officers in this
country. When you ask them how many contribute a dime to faith-
based groups, about 20 percent of them will raise their hands.
And when you ask the others, well, why don't you
contribute, they say, because of separation of Church and
State. I say, you're not the State, you're a private entity.
But that's how pervasive the discrimination is in the
marketplace against supporting things of faith.
So we hoped that the President would use the bully pulpit
to go and speak to some of these corporate leaders and say to
them, you should support faith-based groups.
But let me give you some idea of what is missing in this
whole dialog. Many of the groups, as I said, we support, want
the discrimination against these groups. And Mr. Cummings, you
know, as a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, as I am, that
one of the ways that we discriminate is develop surrogate ways
of discriminating, like a poll tax or literacy tax to prevent
people from coming to the polls.
Well, the same moral equivalent exists in many of the
cities. For instance, in the whole issue, we believe that what
this administration should support are tax credits, as Mr.
Souder said. We were appalled that the administration did not
support it, because that is what our groups want, tax credits
to empower individual givers to give to people in those
communities. Seventy percent of all American taxpayers have a
tax liability of between $300 and $500. Low-income people give
a higher proportion of their income to charity than rich
people. That means that if you had tax credits, people could
give directly without any church-State issues.
The second point we emphasize was vouchers, like food
stamps or the G.I. Bill of Rights, where the individual is
empowered to select a provider, rather than the Government
selecting the provider and funding it. We think the provider
ought to be selected by the people suffering the problem. The
customer should select the provider, not some Government or
entity selecting it.
But what has happened, and I just want to rattle off a few
of these barriers. Food stamps. A lot of our groups don't want
money, but individuals receive food stamps. Right now, under
this administration, many of our groups, like Teen Challenge
and others in States, have been told that because they are not
sanctioned or licensed by the State, they are prohibited from
continuing to receive food stamps. We are continuing to try to
get clarity on that, and that makes a big difference.
Another is one of the Government programs forbids the grant
recipients from hiring ex-offenders who are coming out of
prison. Now, on the one hand, the Government is saying to the
business community, we want you to hire ex-offenders, but yet
you can't hire them on Government money. So that's a barrier.
The third barrier has to do with giving the choice to the
drug addict and the offender. For instance, under the old
administration, it is interesting, ironically, under the
Clinton administration's policies, if a person came to the door
of a faith-based group and said, I am an alcoholic, and I want
help, and they said, well, if you want to accept help here,
you've got to take the bed and the Bible. Under the old
policies, that person would be given another option, saying,
you can go down the street to the secular program, and that was
acceptable.
This administration, through Executive order, changed that
to say that if a person comes to the door and says, I want the
bed but not the Bible, you must offer it. And this has had a
crippling effect. The other barrier is on access to recovery,
they required any organizations that received access to
recovery voucher, has to be licensed by the State and have
certified people. This is a big barrier, and I have to take
issue with Congressman Cummings, who assumes that certification
is the same as qualification when it comes to treatment of
people.
The very fact that there are 55 public agencies that hire
exclusively people with masters degrees to take care of
children are facing court-ordered receivership because of
incompetence. There are studies that I point to in my testimony
of some of the initiatives that were developed by well-trained
people, for instance, a 5-year effort to discourage kids from
taking drugs that was developed by NIH's behavioral scientists,
all Ph.Ds. Well, a study last year revealed that the children
that were viewing these ads on television had a higher
incidence of drug and alcohol abuse as a consequence. I am on
the NIDA board, I can send you that study that NIDA has
produced.
So it seems to me that what the Faith-Based Office, if it
is to truly serve the people, it should really do something
about these barriers. Let me just offer some recommendations.
The first is the White House Office should act as an ombudsman
for faith-based and community organizations around the country,
and play an active role in solving and resolving some of these
regulatory barriers that prevents them from participating.
Second, we should de-emphasize direct funding that gets you
all mired into hiring issues and go back to the original effort
of emphasizing vouchers, tax credits. The third was pass
charitable tax credits legislation. That is most important. And
the fourth, I suggested the subcommittee could set up an e-mail
address to field complaints from groups around the Nation about
the kinds of barriers that they face so that we can really move
and empower our organizations.
Some of these groups, Mr. Cummings, that we support in your
district, in Southwestern High School, we have just started an
initiative in Baltimore that has put ex-offenders in there as
hall monitors under a training program. These are faith-based
people, and as a consequence, Southwestern High School is
turning around. I testified before your city council, Sheila
Dixon's committee last week. And we are going back to expand
that effort in other Baltimore schools. Because we are judged
by the amount of change we produced. Outcome oriented. And so I
would like to share some of that with you and discuss that with
you at another time, Mr. Cummings.
Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Woodson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Our next witness is Mr. Dennis Griffith, director of Teen
Challenge in southern California. He has been accompanied here
today and I would like to recognize them, by Jerry Nance,
president and CEO of Teen Challenge of Florida-Georgia; Mike
Hodges, senior executive director of Teen Challenge, National
Pacific Northwest; Randy Rowe, executive director, Teen
Challenge Northern California-Nevada; Rodney Hart, president,
Teen Challenge New England; Rev. Manuel Barega, executive
director, Teen Challenge Maryland; and Phil Cookes, director of
Los Angeles County Teen Challenge.
We welcome the members of your organization here at our
hearing to watch the lovely business of Congress conducting
debates. But it is very informative, and hopefully they have
learned a lot as well. Thank you for your willingness to
testify.
STATEMENT OF DENNIS GRIFFITH
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
members of the subcommittee.
As executive director of Teen Challenge of southern
California, I welcome this opportunity to discuss President
George W. Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative and its
effect on faith-based substance abuse recovery programs like
Teen Challenge.
Teen Challenge supports and greatly appreciates this
administration's Faith-Based Initiative, but we continue to see
barriers to faith-based programs such as ours. Congressman
Green's legislative proposal affords an opportunity to discuss
the role of the Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives.
Let me start by saying that various elements of the Faith-
Based Initiative have been very helpful to Teen Challenge.
President Bush, in fact, has publicly recognized Teen Challenge
on numerous occasions, helping to raise the visibility of the
organization. Some of the Teen Challenge chapter leaders have
attended conferences organized by the White House Office and
have benefited from those conferences.
In addition, the White House Office and some of the agency
offices have provided useful introductions and networking
opportunities between Teen Challenge and various departments of
the Government. We have also benefited by being involved in a
meaningful dialog concerning the President's access to recovery
initiative with SAMHSA and the State of California and others.
The mission of Teen Challenge is to provide youth, adults
and family with an effective and comprehensive faith-based
solution to drug and alcohol addiction. Our objectives are to
enable individuals to find freedom from addictive behavior and
to become socially and emotionally healthy, physically well and
spiritually alive. Through committed staff and effective
programs, Teen Challenge strives to produce graduates who
function responsibly and productively in society and who have
healthy relationships in the workplace, family, church and
community.
Since its founding in 1958, our faith-based network has
grown into the largest of its kind in the world. Teen Challenge
now operates 185 centers here in the United States, and an
additional 370 in 85 countries around the world. Teen Challenge
has a well established track record and is recognized as one of
the largest and most effective faith-based substance abuse
prevention and recovery programs in the country. More than
2,000 men and women graduate annually from our 1-year
residential recovery programs just here in the United States.
Anywhere from 20 percent to as much as 50 percent of the
participants in the 1-year residential recovery program have
been assigned to us by the courts. The fact that so many
judges, probation and parole officers make referrals to Teen
Challenge is just one indication of the recognized
effectiveness of the Teen Challenge program.
Throughout our history, Teen Challenge has contended that
the fundamental reason for our success in helping people with
life-controlling problems through our residential program,
typically drug addiction, is because these individuals have had
a spiritual transformation experience as an act of God's grace.
This perspective produces a sense of dignity, self-worth, hope,
and personal empowerment. This is the foundation and core of
our residential program.
Typically 1 year in length, it offers an environment of
therapeutic support and spiritual formation. The program, into
which entry has always been voluntary, requires discipline,
responsible decisionmaking and accountability. Students
participate in daily devotions, chapel, church services and
outreach activities. These are essential elements for what we
do and why we have been so successful. In addition, throughout
the 1-year experience, students are equipped with functional
tools, including job skills and vocational-technical training
to assist them in re-entering society as productive and healthy
people.
As I mentioned, entrance into these programs is always
voluntary, and each prospective student clearly understands the
program's distinctiveness.
Teen Challenge fully understands and recognizes that most
of our residential programs will not be eligible for direct
Government support. However, it is our understanding that the
concept of indirect funding would allow individuals who qualify
for certain entitlements, such as food stamps or access to
recovery vouchers, to use these benefits in the institution of
their choice.
However, faith-based organizations like Teen Challenge are
prevented from fully participating in these voucher programs
because they cannot meet the State licensing or certification
criteria. At present, only 5 percent of the 185 Teen Challenge
centers are licensed by the State. The methods and strategies
employed by Teen Challenge differ considerably from those of
traditional clinical programs. As a result, Teen Challenge
chapters, although effective, cannot meet licensing standards
that only recognize traditional clinical programs.
Because the vast majority of our chapters are not licensed,
they face difficulties in qualifying for federally supported
voucher programs. In addition, because these programs cannot
obtain a license, they are often not recognized as a drug and
alcohol program by Federal and State agencies. For example, the
lack of recognition affects the ability of our program's
participants to access even indirect benefits such as food
stamps.
For many years, Teen Challenge chapters in Texas and
Massachusetts had been able to receive food stamps for their
qualified participants. Recently, in Texas and Massachusetts,
State agencies told Teen Challenge that the Federal Department
of Agriculture required the licensing of all programs for
eligibility purposes. Those Teen Challenge programs in Texas
and Massachusetts were taken off the eligibility rolls to
receive food stamps.
In addition, licensing requirements and the resulting lack
of recognition of programs like Teen Challenge have prevented
us from fully participating in the access to recovery
initiative.
Clearly, certification standards appropriate for clinical
or traditional treatment programs are not wholly adequate for
their faith-based counterparts. A new category of residential
recovery support programs would take into account the mission
and method of faith-based recovery programs and would provide
Teen Challenge equal access to recovery resources available to
traditional treatment programs. Most importantly, it would
offer those in need of addiction relief an equal choice between
traditional approaches and faith-based recovery programs.
In conclusion, I want to stress that we support the
President's Faith-Based Initiative and desire that efforts
related to the Initiative continue. Significant progress can
still be made to help level the playing field and remove
barriers.
As you will be able to see, on an attached DVD, I enclosed
a DVD with my written testimony, as you can see on the attached
DVD, our country's leadership has been involved in faith-based
programs for many years. These efforts should be a permanent
part of our Government's effort.
I applaud all the President's efforts to help those who
hurt, even those who have made mistakes in life concerning
drugs and alcohol. Each time the President mentions this topic,
he lifts the spirits of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics
across America, giving them hope and a sense of dignity and for
that, I am eternally grateful.
I also want to express my appreciation to Director Charles
Curry of SAMHSA and John Walters with ONDCP and the members of
the California Access to Recovery effort who have aided and
welcomed faith-based organizations.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
this opportunity to appear before you today, and I would be
happy to answer any questions at a later time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Griffith follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Our next witness is Rabbi David Saperstein, director,
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Thank you for your
patience in this long hearing today and for sticking around,
and we look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN
Rabbi Saperstein. Thank you for your invitation and your
attention to this important issue. I am deeply honored to be
here with such a distinguished panel. I want to recognize my
superb staff person, Eric Gold, who works on these issues, and
my young son, Ari, who has attentively been listening to hours
of testimony here.
Mr. Chairman, we urge you not to pass at this time the
legislation which would codify the President's Faith-Based
Initiative through the formal creation of a permanent White
House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Now, the
creation of an office designed and dedicated to helping
Government find appropriate ways to partner with religious
organizations to deliver social services resonates powerfully
with our religious sensibilities.
Thus, it is not for this reason we object to it but because
of the actual history that you have discussed at length today
and what the office does. So long as the centerpiece of this
office is to get money directly to houses of worship, an
endorsement of the office on the grounds that it does other
good things would constitute endorsement of a Trojan horse,
attractive on the outside, but support for a structure that
will facilitate programs that violate the establishment clause,
undercut good social services programs and infringe on the
rights of beneficiaries.
To be perfectly clear, we agree wholeheartedly with the
President's oft-cited remark that Government cannot always put
hope in people's heart the way that religion can, therefore it
is not surprising that almost all of our Reform Jewish
synagogues across America have wonderful social service
programs. However, we strongly oppose the central component of
the Faith-Based Initiative that would involve direct Government
funding of our synagogues; indeed, of any of America's
pervasively sectarian institutions. Insofar as this office
seeks to codify this so-called charitable choice into law, it
is bad for religion, bad public policy, unconstitutional and
socially divisive. Other than that, we have no objections.
[Laughter.]
It is bad policy first because, with Government money comes
Government rules, regulations, audits, monitoring, interference
and control. Second, with Government money comes compromises in
the religious mission of churches, synagogues and mosques in
America. Reliance on Government funding creates the temptation
to skew your program to attract the money and to mute the
prophetic obligation of calling the Government to account.
Further, when there are limits placed on religious activity
in Government-funded programs as the Constitution demands,
those churches committed to including such activities as
essential to their programs--I just heard Dennis Griffith speak
about the spiritual enhancement that is at the core of what
they are about. Those churches either must compromise their
mission in order to obtain the money or ignore the rules with
potentially dire consequences to the beneficiaries of services
and to the churches.
Third, by opening up our Nation's limited funding for
social services to potentially scores of thousands of houses of
worship, let me remind you, there are 300,000 houses of worship
in America. Let's assume only a small number, but some scores
of thousands of them compete for this limited, shrinking pot
that you discussed before.
The result is going to be countless millions of dollars
will be diverted and thus weaken what are widely regarded as
the finest, most effective social service providers today, the
superb, although albeit overwhelmed religiously affiliated
social service providers, such as Catholic Charities, Jewish
Federations, Lutheran Social Services, all of which abide by
the vast majority of regulations applicable to other charities.
Without a national commitment to substantial increases in
funding, there is no guarantee that the Faith-Based Initiative
will see one more needy person being helped.
Fourth, Charitable Choice will lead to increased social
divisiveness in America as different churches compete for
Government money and endorsement. The prospect of intense
competition for limited funding, the politicizing of church
affairs to obtain funds, the impact on those made to feel that
they are outsiders when they fail to obtain funds, all this
sectarian competitiveness leads to the very kind of sectarian
divisiveness that has plagued so many other nations and which
we have been spared because of the separation of church and
State.
Fifth, such funding violates the religious rights of
taxpayers. As Jefferson said, to compel a man to furnish
contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he
disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. This helps explain why so
many religious leaders, on the left and the right, oppose the
program.
Now, there are a number of Constitutional concerns as well,
here. First, in all the discussions of all the cases that you
have heard here today, there is one central principle, one
legal standard that must be kept in mind. The Supreme Court of
the United States and the vast majority of lower courts have
never upheld direct Government cash support for pervasively
sectarian institutions. The Helms case, Mr. Chairman, that you
referred to before, provided in-kind help. The busing cases
provided services, but not direct payments.
In the most recent case, the Helms case, the controlling
concurring opinion of Justice O'Connor noted our concern with
direct monetary aid is based on more than just concern about
diversion of tax-funded aid to religious uses. In fact, the
most important reason for according special treatment to direct
money grants is that this form of aid falls precariously close
to the original object of the Establishment Clause's
prohibition.
Second, the rights of beneficiaries would inevitably be
infringed. In the real world, protecting beneficiaries will be
difficult and I add, all but impossible. Look how integrated
together in Teen Challenge and so many other wonderful programs
is the secular and religious components of it. The notion that
Government money will pay only for the secular parts and not
for the religious parts integrated into that is almost
impossible to monitor and to audit, but puts the beneficiary in
a terrible situation.
People who come to the many of these services come at
moments of crisis in their lives. They have so few choices,
they grasp at straws. The notion that they can truly make a
voluntary decision, whether to abide by all the stipulations in
a part of your wonderful program, Mr. Griffith, is just
unrealistic in the real world.
Third, churches and synagogues have rightly been exempted
from many laws that would compromise their religious freedom,
including the right to discriminate. We have two principles in
tension: one, Government money should never be used to
discriminate. We heard about that earlier. Second, if religious
entities are to function with autonomy, they have to be able to
hire people that subscribe to their beliefs. The way to balance
them out is to say, protect those rights with private money,
but if you want Government money, go after it only if you can
provide secular services.
And finally, much has been argued that all the proponents
of this money want is a level playing field. Just treat
religion like everything else. God forbid. The framers did not
do that; they accorded religion special status, special
protections; only religion has an Establishment Clause. We have
all kinds of privileges, protections, exemptions. If those who
are willing to sell their birthright for the porridge of
Government money do so on the basis that all we want is to
treat religion just like everything else, then some day the
Government and everyone else will listen, and it will be a
disaster for America.
And it does not have to happen. There are better ways, and
we heard about many of them, from Bob Woodson, from the
chairman today, there are many Constitutional ways to achieve
our goals, providing technical assistance, training programs
for staff of all groups, best practice sharing, targeted
research on how to improve programs, reducing and eliminating
fees for small organizations, including churches and
synagogues, to establish separately incorporated social service
arms, to assist the poor with voucher programs for social
service, providing better information to the public about
available programs like you provide and encouraging charitable
contributions through appropriate tax relief.
Mr. Chairman, I would finally just suggest to you, what is
the answer to your question about why the administration did
not support your bill that as I listened to it, your proposed
bill, as I listened to it I can imagine a wall to wall
religious coalition getting behind? Even people who differ on
many of the core issues here today?
I think one reason you have to consider is that
Representative Cummings might be right, that what is at stake
is greater interest in delivering money to core constituents or
potential supporters than it is about really helping the poor.
If we are about helping the poor, then vouchers would have been
at the core of this, then your suggestion would have been
welcomed with open arms. With mutual respect and hard work, we
can affirm religious liberty, even while we enhance the ability
of religious institutions to provide social services.
[The prepared statement of Rabbi Saperstein follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you for maintaining your enthusiasm on
this long day. [Laughter.]
Our last witness is Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, on behalf of the
Interfaith Alliance. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF REV. C. WELTON GADDY
Rev. Gaddy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Cummings. Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on
behalf of the Interfaith Alliance. With a membership of over
150,000 persons coming from 75 different faith traditions, the
Interfaith Alliance is a non-partisan national grassroots
organization dedicated to promoting the positive and healing
role of religion in public life. Personally, in addition to
serving as president of the Interfaith Alliance, I also serve
as pastor for preaching and worship in Northminster Baptist
Church in Monroe, LA.
Now, why would a religious leader, a Christian pastor, not
want Federal money to do social services? My opposition to the
Faith-Based Initiative comes not out of a lack of concern for
the increased number of people living in poverty, battling
hunger, people without medical insurance, a proliferation of
people with other overwhelming needs. Mr. Chairman, I am deeply
moved by your transparent passion for helping poor and hurting
people.
My opposition to this program resides in a profound concern
that the program as presently configured ultimately will hurt,
not help, both the religious community and the civil community
in their efforts to meet those needs and possibly impact
adversely the people in need as well. Today I will only
summarize and highlight a few of the specific reasons that I
oppose the Faith-Based Initiative. Those reasons are elaborated
at length in my written testimony submitted for the record.
First, the Faith-Based Initiative incorrectly assumes that
faith-based social service providers are superior in delivering
services. The fact is that some faith-based social service
agencies do a better job than their secular counterparts, and
some don't. In my first year in seminary, when my seminary
notes were stolen, I learned that people in religious
institutions represent a cross-section of society just as do
people in other institutions. [Laughter.]
Second, the Faith-Based Initiative allows civil rights
violations to be supported by taxpayers' money. Witness the
dramatic deletion of civil rights guarantees in this year's
version of the Workforce Investment Act.
As a Baptist minister, I have always valued the
Government's understanding that houses of worship need to
employ ministers who are within their own religious tradition.
But when houses of worship agree to become contract employees
of the Federal Government, that changes. They change their
nature, their identity, their ministry. As a patriot as well as
a pastor, I want Federal money to go to organizations that are
faithfully in compliance with civil rights laws. I would
suggest that expectation also qualifies as an expression of
good religion.
Third, the Faith-Based Initiative endangers the integrity
of religion, threatens to compromise the prophetic ministry of
religion within our Nation and creates a possibility of harmful
conflict, competition and division within the religious
community of our Nation. With all due respect, I cannot help
but observe that this hearing, in this, the most religiously
pluralistic Nation in the world, has included language that has
not reached beyond the religions of Judaism and Christianity. I
fear the relevance of that reality to the distribution of
charitable funding by persons looking intently at majority
opinions related to electoral politics.
Government-funded religion is as bad for religion as it is
for the Constitution. In conclusion, let me say, I have many
Constitutional concerns about this program. Those concerns are
being articulated eloquently by many other people, David
Saperstein being at the top of that list. But I speak to you
today primarily focused not on what this program does to the
Constitution of our religion, but what it does to the vitality
and integrity of religion in our Nation. We are forgetting too
easily the lessons of history. The institutions of Government
need to stay out of the institutions of religion for the sake
of religion.
Authentic religion requires a context of freedom. Even the
most avid evangelists know that religion can never be pushed
down a person's throat and come out as authentic religion.
Viewed from that perspective, the piece of legislation that
prompted this hearing epitomizes the problem. It would impose a
faith-based office on future administrations. Our Government
has no more business legislating the imposition of a faith-
based office on future administrations than imposing religion
on vulnerable persons through faith-based initiatives.
In virtually every testimony given to this committee today,
I have heard serious concerns about the manner in which the
present program functions. Why then any insistence on
perpetuating a program flawed to such an extent that it would
be better for us to replace it than attempt to continue it? If
Congress wants a special office in the White House to assure
that our Presidents are constantly aware of the Nation's
responsibility to care for the weakest, poorest and most
hurting among us, the Interfaith Alliance will work with
enthusiasm to support that initiative.
But let me reiterate: we do not need a faith-based office
in the White House. We have faith-based offices all over this
Nation. And they are right where they belong; in synagogues and
gudwaras and mosques and churches, in temples and in storefront
ministry centers.
Mr. Chairman, you began this hearing this afternoon--I
think it was this afternoon--by asking how you could sustain
this program. At the end of this hearing, personally, I don't
think you can. But I don't believe you should.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Rev. Gaddy follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I think one of the things that baffles a lot of us
conservative Republicans, and particularly people of deep
faith, particularly more whether it be orthodox Jewish,
conservative Catholic or evangelical faith, is an exasperation
at some of the tone of the criticism. Because basically, we
were your natural alliance to try to help get more funds to
address poverty. What you were asking us, but you have to
include us at the table with these criteria.
Basically what we are being told is, you are not welcome if
you have these criteria. What you do is you push us with the
free market conservatives who say, OK, go it on your own. And
the bottom line, that is in effect what is happening in our
country right now. Because we were not able to build a
coalition to increase poverty funds with the condition that we
would be able to take our faith to the table, there has been no
increase in poverty funds.
And as a practical matter, this is happening at every State
level. It is much like when you go to a school bond issue, if
you have the conservative predominantly Christians but would
also include orthodox Jews, and for that matter conservative
Muslims believing that faith is excluded, and you already have
50 percent plus of the people who don't have their kids in the
schools, if you divide the people who have their kids in the
school and basically shut those of us out who are conservative
but admittedly a minority of the Republican party, what you
have is no new school bonds, no support for school funding.
And if we can't figure out how we are going to address this
and bring these two sides together, bottom line is, we will
just continue in the path. It doesn't matter in our country
right now whether you have a conservative Republican or a
liberal Democrat, nobody is increasing Medicaid spending.
Nobody is doing more for juvenile justice. Nobody is doing more
in the different spendings, because in effect, you have cut out
your natural allies, because of the approach.
I understand why, because it is somewhat inherently
contradictory. Quite frankly, I have deep concerns about the
entanglement of Government. But let me ask Rabbi Saperstein a
question here, because I thought I heard you say this, because
it was a great list where you said that we could work together.
Did you say that you would support the tax credits?
Rabbi Saperstein. Yes. We would support either tax
deductions that were targeted benefits for the poor or even tax
credits. So I am very encouraged by hearing you suggest that.
Mr. Souder. Reverend Gaddy, did you agree with that?
Rev. Gaddy. Yes, in fact, I was struck with what Mr.
Woodson said about expectations going into this program early
on, and the fact that he had hoped the President would use the
bully pulpit to rally support among businesses and corporations
for this program and also to make tax adjustments that would
encourage charitable giving. We affirm that wholeheartedly.
Mr. Souder. Let me ask a tougher question, because I also
thought I heard Rabbi Saperstein say vouchers. Now, Teen
Challenge presents a very aggressive, problematic version of
the vouchers. In other words, somebody has a voucher, and they
are taking their voucher to an overtly religious organization,
let's say in this case food stamps. Should they be able to use
a food stamp voucher to pay for the food that the people are
eating at the program?
Rabbi Saperstein. It is an interesting question. We
recognize that the court has recently upheld vouchers in fairly
specific circumstances. We oppose that decision and we think it
is bad public policy to use even indirect money allocated
through vouchers to pervasively sectarian activity. But if you
are talking about the secular parts of programs run by such
institutions, we would probably lean toward doing it. It would
depend on the specificity of the program, the specifics of the
program.
If the vouchers are going to be used the way they are in
parochial schools, to support the teaching and proselytization
and worship that is at the center of religious activity, we
would probably oppose it on public policy grounds. If it were
relegated simply to the secular components of this, we would be
open to looking at that program, might possibly oppose it.
My point to Mr. Woodson, who has always made this argument
about vouchers being a better way of doing it is, if people
want to avoid the Constitutional battle under the court's
ruling there is a way to do it. And I have to ask, why isn't it
happening? Why aren't people following what Mr. Woodson says?
Mr. Woodson. Let me just say that this whole debate about
vouchers took place back in 1943, as a preamble to the vote for
the G.I. Bill of Rights, when the educational experts argued
that to give money directly to G.Is. would create an
intellectual hobo jungle out of higher education. And we
debated it. And the Congress voted to trust the opinions of the
American people to make informed, individual choices.
As a consequence, the money went directly to the G.Is. And
over the course of that program, we educated 500,000 rabbis,
Baptist preachers, Catholic priests, because they chose to use
their money to educate. So we need to go back and look at that
history. So I have to challenge you a little bit about somehow,
on the one hand you are supporting individual choice, but then
you are going to go in and prescribe and discriminate and say,
but you can't use it for religious education.
We don't do this with Pell Grants. We don't say to kids who
are poor, you can't use it at Catholic University, you can't
use it at Southern Methodist. So I don't understand that.
One other point about your barriers, about protection,
Pastor Gaddy. I have to challenge you too, because the groups
that I support, 2,000 of them in 39 States, they didn't want
Government money, but Government was coming down on their case
like in Texas. We had volunteers, they have these drop-in
centers that our gang members consider sanctuary. And we lead
people out of gangs.
What is happening is that the local government and the
State government is saying, because your volunteers are
volunteers, they are technically employees of and therefore you
must pay workmen's compensation. And because their cars are
driven by them, not owned by the organization, you have to have
a collective liability insurance. Insurance issues, and it is
only done against these religious organizations.
So the licensing, all of those, they do require some
protection from the Government. We are not asking for direct
money. But we are asking for protection. That's why there needs
to be some entity out there to help to protect these groups
from the intrusion of Government into their operations.
And a final point is that we should stop using faith-based
as synonymous with church. The devil has a church. But I think
that there are a lot of faith-based organizations who are
faith-based but are not churches. So I think that we need to
honor that, too.
But I really think we need to look more deeply, and I am
really pleased that I think we have a consensus on this panel
that at least the charitable tax credits are a good thing. I
have found this to be true throughout the country and I can't
understand why the administration has a tin ear to listen to
the thousands of grassroots groups on the left and right of
center. There is a consensus, but somehow they are ignoring
this consensus.
Mr. Souder. I want to kind of probe this voucher question
just a little bit further, because it is always difficult,
anything that says voucher panics everybody here, and I think
Congressman Scott addressed part of that, and Mr. Woodson
responded to some degree, and that is, do we actually trust
people, are we going to have measurements, is it going to be
too chaotic in the structure of the measurement system.
But there is this fundamental question of, with a voucher,
you get to take a higher ed Pell Grant or whatever to whatever
college you want, that includes proselytization, Rabbi
Saperstein, you could address that. But the second thing is,
the court also said in effect, in recent rulings, regarding
Catholic schools, that the bus does not proselytize. The
simplest way to say it is they allowed computers and said the
computers did not proselytize but a software could.
Now, the question is, a food voucher does not proselytize
either. In other words, a food stamp, what does that have to do
with proselytizing, even under that question when you said you
didn't believe food stamps should be used at a Teen Challenge?
Because isn't that the same argument of yes, the bus and the
computer still are vehicles with which people do go to an event
where they get proselytized?
Rabbi Saperstein. Of course, we oppose the decision that
came down in Helms. We agreed with the dissenters there. The
court has upheld, until this time, that, and has never
overruled this, that pervasively sectarian entities, meaning
houses of worship and parochial schools, and some proselyting
missions, have religion so infused through the entirety of it
that you can't break out the secular and the religious. The
court has always been resistant about direct funding, even
through the Helms case. Even Justice Thomas, writing for the
four-person plurality acknowledged it would be different if it
would be direct funding to the institution.
So the court has always been hesitant about doing this. The
term ``faith-based organization'' is a broad term. I couldn't
agree more with Mr. Woodson than he me, that is not our doing.
That is the President's doing. Over and over again he would
say, we have got to get money to faith-based organizations,
then he would turn around and say, like Catholic Charities.
Well, Catholic Charities gets money. There are all kinds of
religious groups now getting money.
It is the limited category of the pervasive sectarian
entities that we have to look at differently that raise special
problems. So in light of the court's decision, we for instance
have always upheld, you want to take your Medicare benefits, go
to a religious hospital, you have the right to do that. Same
kind of logic.
But the courts, in dealing with children, have always dealt
differently than with adults. Children are more impressionable
than adults, harder for prayer in the school, always different
than prayer in this chamber, because you can see the difference
of Government sponsorship. You can decide to leave, you are not
compelled to be there. And educational settings are different
than other kinds of settings.
Well, some of these social service programs, their strength
lies in the fact that they are almost teaching, inculcating
kinds of things. I think that is one of the foundations of the
success of Teen Challenge. Hard to differentiate, is it pure
social service or educational or a mix or both? Is it secular
or religious, a mix of both? Vouchers in those situations are
right on the cusp.
We are willing to take a look at that, much prefer it to
direct funding. Because you don't have the same problem about
Government intrusions, audits, monitoring, interference. You
don't have the same problems here about tax dollars going by
the Government's choice to pervasively sectarian entities, etc.
So we would be willing to look at it, but it is right on
the cusp and problematic. We have not reached a decision. But
certainly far better to do that than direct grants.
Mr. Souder. And I have said during our many debates on the
faith-based, I believe direct funding prohibits proselytizing.
I believe the court has already ruled. I believe that is a
modern ruling, because in the old days, even the King James
Bible was printed twice with Library of Congress stamped on it,
and it is an avowed ruling. But it is a law of the land in that
only indirect funding is at debate here, and how we work out
the indirect funding and what constitutes indirect funding is
really what we are trying to work through.
Let me yield to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. First of all, I want to thank all of you for
being here, and thank you for your testimony. I was just
thinking about something that you said, Reverend Gaddy, that
was very--it does not, we don't hear a lot about it, this whole
issue of the damage that some of this may do to religion
itself. It is a very, very powerful argument.
I was talking to my pastor, Dr. Walter Thomas. He was
talking about how the church, he felt that the church, it is a
Baptist church, but he felt that the church had to have a
certain level of independence, so that no matter who is in
politics, that the church could still speak up with integrity,
without fear.
I heard what you said, Mr. Woodson, that all faith-based is
not necessarily a church. But I want to just put it in this
context, because you know, the church has, the church, I think,
when it stands as the independent entity, and when I say
church, I am talking about very broadly, they have a way of
sort of policing--I hate to say morality, because morality is
relative. But the church has a way, with independence, to
maintain a certain level of integrity. And I think that is what
you were getting at. Correct me if I am wrong.
But the reason why it is such a powerful concept is because
you want, you would hope that there would be something, some
institution that would be able to honestly say, look, there is
something wrong with this, and that it not be judged from the
standpoint that, well, are they agreeing because of this or
that? Do they get some money?
And I just think that is something, that is an argument
that you do not hear a lot. I don't see how you could even have
this discussion, to fully deal with this discussion, without
bringing that up. And I thank you for doing that.
Rev. Gaddy. May I respond briefly?
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Rev. Gaddy. Mr. Cummings, I think we have to look carefully
at the way in which religion has best impacted this Nation
through its history. And I would suggest to you that its best
contribution to the whole American experience has been calling
this Nation to fulfill its highest and best vision of how
people ought to treat each other. It was behind that movement
in the Civil Rights battle, it was behind that movement in
issues of war and peace.
And my concern is, in relation to the subject here, that if
the granting of funds is politicized, like we have politicized
almost everything else, we are going to compromise the
integrity of religion. Because here is what is at stake. People
who are opposed to this particular legislation are just as
compassionate about helping poor people and drug addicts as
everybody else. We want to do it, but we want to do it the
right way.
If you are out there in one of those storefront churches,
or you are in a temple in the midst of a bad neighborhood and
you are wanting to help, and you know there is a possibility
that you could get some funding coming from the Faith-Based
Initiative, say, and yet you want to raise a moral challenge to
the politicians in your district or to the President of the
United States, so intense is that compassion you are going to
think twice before you do it. Because you are going to say, I
do not want to speak truth to power if speaking truth to power
may cost me money that I can use to help that family down the
street that I know. We should not put religion in that bind.
And if we compromise the integrity of religion and its
ability to speak truth to power, we will bemoan the day we did
it.
Mr. Cummings. Rabbi Saperstein.
Rabbi Saperstein. I would just add that at the core,
Representative Cummings, of your observation, is the fact that
some critics of the Establishment Clause, as interpreted by the
Supreme Court, have foisted a myth on America that somehow
separation of church and State is anti-God or anti-religion.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is that wall that has kept Government out of religion,
that has allowed religion to flourish with the diversity and
strength in American unmatched anywhere in the democratic
world, including every country that has a government-sponsored,
government-preferred, government-established, government-
supported religion. Far more people going regularly to worship,
far, far more people believing in God and holding religious
values central to their lives in America.
The autonomy of religion is protected by a strong wall
separating church and State. In pursuit of money to tear down
that wall would welcome Government into the life, the central
life of the religious communities of America. It would be a
disastrous change from that which has made America great for
religion.
Mr. Cummings. I was telling some of my staff members that I
think religion is very, very, very important. Whatever your
religion is, assuming that it is for the greater good of
society, I don't mean some cultist out to destroy the world or
something, to destroy people. Because I think what it does is
it gives people some kind of a sense that there is something
greater than they are. I think.
And I don't know all the religions, but I know a few, being
a son of two preachers. I guess I am just trying to figure out,
going to what you just said, Rabbi, do we throw the baby, just
throw everything out because it is the money and lose all of
those wonderful things? The thing that I was glad to hear that
you said, Reverend Gaddy, is that you want us to respect all
the religions, which is important. Because a lot of people,
these arguments are made, but if somebody came up and said, OK,
I am a Buddhist, I want some money, or I am a Muslim, then I do
not know whether everybody would be as tolerant of that.
Are you following me? One of you all made the implication,
somebody said something about Christianity and Judaism and how,
when you get beyond that, what happens. It is just like right
now, we are having a debate, and I will close out with this, a
debate in Maryland about whether schools should be closed for
Muslims.
So our board in Baltimore County decided no, it should not
happen. So you wonder, at what point, I mean, we have to be
careful, we have to make sure that we do everything in our
power, I think, to maintain that moral high ground. The moral
high ground, I guess, is best, has a better chance of existing
if you do have some independence, like you all have been
saying.
Mr. Woodson. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, sir, Mr. Woodson.
Mr. Woodson. If I may, just a comment on that. I think that
the danger from some of my constituents is that not only
separation of church and State, but making the State hostile to
religion. To the point, my wife is a teacher in Montgomery
County, and she is not permitted to even say, peace on Earth.
In Pittsburgh, in the hill district, one of the most violence-
prone areas, because a group wanted to have Bible study for
some kids that everybody is neglecting, and we used a public
school that was empty all summer, we get suits filed against us
from the ACLU and others, saying separation of church and
State.
But the ACLU and all these other groups are going to come
down there and provide an alternative service for those kids.
All they are concerned about is going back to their suburban
homes and saying, well, we have protected the Constitution.
What about protecting those kids?
So I don't think there has to be a tradeoff on this. But I
really think that we ought to be very careful when we walk down
that road, to make sure that we are not throwing the baby out
with the wash, in this case not making the State hostile to
religion. There are a lot of hostile actions that are taken in
our low-income communities. Every time our groups want to do
something to help a population of people that everybody has
abandoned, the only time they hear from some of these groups is
when they are in opposition to something that smells of
separation of church and State.
Rabbi Saperstein. Except in point of fact, there is an
answer to that, which is working together, we can actually
defuse those problems. Let me remind the committee that when
there were disputes on the issue of what was allowed
religiously in the schools, an extraordinary coalition of
groups, from the right to the left, Christian Legal Society
over to the American Jewish Congress and the other Jewish
organizations, the Baptist Joint Committee and others, all got
together left to right to write guidelines that were then
disseminated by the Department of Education in both
administrations affirming what was allowed. Because there would
be the folks who were so scared about separation of church and
State they would do silly things that clearly are allowed under
the law.
The way to deal with that is education. There is actually a
robust amount of religious expression that is allowed. But
don't solve the problem by going overboard in the other
direction. Therefore, I am particularly concerned about the
administration acting on its own. I think it was Representative
Green who said, all we want to do is codify the existing law.
Whose law? This Congress did not act. That is why the
administration moved by Executive order to do it.
You have not reviewed this, you have not set down the
guidelines that you would set down if you were implementing and
developing such a program about it. The courts have not ruled
on those issues. None of these things have yet made it up
through the courts. It is not codifying. This bill that is
before you is not codifying anything other than the
administration's take on what politically it thinks will be
helpful for it and we have heard criticism from the left and
the right on that. That is one of the reasons we are urging you
not to pass this bill.
Mr. Cummings. As I close, let me just say this. As all of
you were talking, I was just saying, I am so grateful that we
have the freedoms that we have and that we have the
independence that we have, so that you could even feel free to
come here and feel comfortable to say what you just said.
Rev. Gaddy. That's right.
Mr. Cummings. I think we have to really be very careful
that we guard those freedoms.
But thank you all very much for what you all do, for
touching so many lives in so many ways. I am sure sometimes you
feel like it is kind of a thankless job, I know. But the fact
is that you are making a difference, not only for the people
that you touch every day, but for generations yet unborn. Thank
you.
Mr. Souder. I want to conclude with a couple of comments.
First, clearly if you do religious freedom, it includes
everybody, it includes Muslims, it includes Buddhists, and the
Religions Freedom in the Workplace Act that I have, these
bills, a lot of evangelicals don't understand that. And their
support might be less enthusiastic if they understood it.
But basically what's good for one is good for all. The
question is, you are either for it or you are against it. But
it does include all religions, even though overwhelmingly this
is a Christian Nation, even with the influx of minority groups.
The fact is that even among Christians, there are many
different divisions. I come from an Anabaptist background, and
was persecuted by everybody. [Laughter.]
So we tend to be skeptical of the State.
We also have a real fundamental problem with the private
sector funders that Mr. Woodson addressed, because the
Government funding has become a Good Housekeeping seal. Part of
the reason that groups want it, because the foundations just
say, well, if you don't get Government funds, then you don't
deserve it. We do not have time to audit you, what weight do
you have.
So we have to find, and it may be through these
intermediary institutions that we develop a Government
certified audit, if we can't get them direct funding, that says
this group is behaving up to certain standards. Because the big
money is in the private sector, not in the public sector right
now. And yet these groups aren't there, aren't getting the
private sector, because they are hanging it on the Government.
And the same groups get the Government funds.
So what we have seen in the private foundations also, but
in the private service sector, is that you are getting bigger,
large boards. And the fundamental thing that drove this
project, and it has been extremely exasperating to many of us
that are involved in this, is when Mr. Woodson said, go out
there and meet these individual people, what you see are very
small, effective groups working from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m, on very
little budget with no health care, with nothing else. The
question is, how do we get them dollars?
Quite frankly, one of the things we did not mention in the
tax thing is you have to have non-itemizers being able to do
it, that's why the credit works as well. We have to figure out
how to get dollars there.
But even so, without supplemental or private dollars, the
question is, these groups, everybody believes, are effective.
They are working the neighborhoods. How do we monitor them is
one challenge. And the second thing is, how do we get them
dollars. It was very easy then to look at the Federal dollars
and if I can--but that has been one of the challenges.
It is really frustrating, because yes, this has gone
political. Quite frankly, part of the reason it went political
is because we can't sell it unless we can show some Republicans
a political advantage to it, because it's not our base. If this
was designed to win the Black vote, it was sure a miserable
failure. I happen to believe it was designed for altruistic
motives. I also think we might want to change it to community
and faith-based. But if we don't institutionalize it, and
community-based organizations have always had a high percentage
of faith-based in it.
But let me point out, if we don't do this bill, it doesn't
change the fact about the way it is going to function. Your
points about the law, you may argue with the substance parts of
the bill. The fact is, the administration opposes this bill.
They don't want to report to Congress with it. They don't want
to have legislative descriptions of the language. And they can
do whatever they please under the current thing.
So unless we do a bill, there will be no regulation of a
faith-based office. So I do not understand the opposition to
the bill. You may be opposed to components of the bill. But to
say you are opposed to the bill means you believe they ought to
do whatever they want.
Part of this is a difficult challenge for how we work. I
want to insert at this point in the record the full Points of
Light movement statement that Mr. Petersmeyer wrote and the
President's report to the Nation. Because part of the reason we
had him first in this panel is I believe if you look deeply,
beyond what political people may have seen out of the current
President Bush, that he's actually very reflecting of his
father that was a deeper type of concern for service.
[Note.--The Points of Light report may be found in
subcommittee files.]
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Souder. And Mr. Petersmeyer, you told me a story about
why you went to the daily Points of Light, and how hard it is
to battle for these kinds of issues in the White House. I
wonder if you would share that here, because it gives us a
perspective that this is not a new battle. What you described
I'm sure goes on every day there, it goes on in every one of
our offices. I may have a real heart for this, but then
insurance reps come in from the insurance industry and doctors
come in and different industries come into my office that can
be regulated or put out of business by it. And huge, billions
of dollars at stake. And your schedule gets pushed around.
How did you address this? Shed light, so to speak, on the
problem that we are facing.
Mr. Petersmeyer. Thank you.
Well, I told you the story of the frustration in the early
months of the Presidency that I felt, this was back in 1989,
where I, as I said in my testimony, I knew President Bush well.
I knew that he felt deeply that it was very important for us to
actually solve these most serious social problems, and that he
believed, as I did, that the only way that was going to happen
was if we substantially increase the volume of people engaged,
whether it is through churches or other faith-based groups or
secular groups.
The challenge was that within the White House, there is
tremendous crowding out that occurs on the President's daily
schedule. Unless something is a big problem or seems to have a
big payoff, it is very, very hard to maintain the leadership
attention within the White House for anything that's beyond the
next news cycle. I felt as did one or two other people, that
even though he had started his Presidency by creating this
office, as I said, the only structural change made, created a
role for an assistant, that the bureaucracy of the West Wing
was going to crowd out, even with the President of the United
States' own best instincts and desires were.
So I realized, to put it in kind of graphic terms, that
this issue would never be the most important issue of the day
for him when he came to work, because of the crush of other
things. But that we needed to find a way to have this seem to
be important to his Presidency every day. I thought there was
great integrity in that, because I knew personally this is what
he wanted to do.
So we proposed what was quite a radical idea at the time,
which was to name someone in the country every single day who
was doing extraordinary work and who would lead by example.
There was tremendous difficulty in getting approval of that
idea within the White House, because of course people there are
jealous of the President's time or distraction from their
issue. And everybody around the Cabinet wants to be the most
important person in the Government second to the President.
And it was clear that there were risks associated with
this. What if we picked a pedophile on the third day? We pick
somebody who we think is doing good work and then we learn that
there is tremendous problems?
Well, we got it approved, and there was a good bit of blood
on the carpet about it. I held my breath, as I told you, those
first few weeks, that we would inadvertently choose somebody
that would allow people to say, see, I told you, and yank it.
We did run into one problem, there was a Point of Light that we
named--and by the way, Marian Wright Edelman and I were sitting
next to each other about a year into this process, and we were
naming five a week, and eventually moved to six a week. She was
no friend of President Bush's as you know.
But she said, I don't know how you're doing it, but you're
naming the right people. And they are all the kinds of people
we have been talking about here. David knows this and others.
They came over the transom and whatever.
But I think that over time, people began to see that, and
this was of no interest in Washington, by the way, the White
House press corps couldn't have cared less. But in communities,
this was important. We found that every individual who was
named generated four or five little stories in their own
community, radio interviews and whatever, because it seemed
that not just the President was thanking them, but that the
Nation was thanking them for what they were doing.
My testimony has been quite different in character from the
others in this, because I don't really, I'm not knowledgeable
on the issues around the faith-based component of what you are
talking about. But I do think that there was a mistake in
naming the office the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. I
think they should have reversed it.
I think all of this attention around faith-based and the
relationship between the Government is missing the point that I
tried to make in my testimony, which is that we must find a way
as a people, as a Nation, to solve these serious social
problems in communities. We must find a way to get more and
more people feeling that they can make a difference in their
own back yards.
The more we lose time where the debate is, I would argue,
about a tactic, it is about a tactic, one subset of one issue,
and lose the opportunity to talk about the need to aspire to a
handful of national goals, or the talk the President gave in
June 1991, which I would like to have be put in the record,
which was June 12, 1992, where he talked about what it means in
America to have communities that are whole and good.
And he said, there are three engines that we have always
relied on in this country to build our Nation of communities.
One is an economy that is growing. And that is a terribly
powerful engine. Another is the work of Government. The final
is the work of non-profit and private organizations. He said,
we must find a way for all three of these engines to move us
forward as a Nation, because not a single engine can do it
alone.
To me the great opportunity around, just in closing, around
the White House office that drew me to this testimony is really
not so much about the need for a faith-based piece as there is
a need for a national strategy that only the President of the
United States can lead, that calls people to be about this kind
of work. I believe that we will not get where we need to get as
a Nation unless the President of the United States, and
frankly, several Presidents back to back, pound away
relentlessly in the need for every American and every
organization in America to claim some of these problems as
their own. There is no other solution.
So I commend you, chairman, for your faithfulness to this
idea, and I just hope that if there is a bill, that much of
what we have talked about today is really not so much the point
as it is to have the President be encouraged permanently to be
of the work of leading communities. Because we are a Nation of
communities, and we need that kind of help. Because we can't
get it from anywhere else.
Thank you very much.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I think I am going to let that be the
conclusion. I appreciate all your testimony today. If you have
any additional things you want to submit into the record, this
will be a strong record of the debate and where I think we can
find compromises to move ahead.
With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 8 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger
and additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]
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