White Survey released yesterday faulted government agencies for not making more funds available to religious groups wishing to operate faith-based programs, and called for an end to "barriers" to the use of public money to subsidize religious community service outreaches.

   "The system has been hostile to faith-based and community-based groups when it ought to have been neutral," said John Bridgeland of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

   The document, "Unlevel Playing Field," was unveiled Thursday at a joint media conference hosted by the White House and the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution. It examined the efforts of five agencies, including the Departments of Justices, Health and Human Services, Education, Labor and Housing and Urban Development to implement new strategies and efforts to reach out to faith-based social service groups. The report comes as President Bush again tries to energize his flagging initiative to divert more public money into the coffers of houses of worship for their charitable activities.

   While calling for greater acceptance of religious groups in the social service mix, though, the report could turn out to be a bombshell in the debate over public funding of faith-based programs. On one hand, it encouraged more efforts to fund religious groups, but confirmed charges made by critics that the government has no clear fix on the amount of money already subsidizing houses or worship, or even if these programs work. Incredibly, the White House survey found that in most government departments, despite the availability for grants there was a serious lack of performance measures, or information about program design or grantee accountability.

   "This report confirms what we've been saying all along," said Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists. "Bush wants to raid the public treasury in order to fund churches, but the government doesn't even have standards or monitoring programs in place to determine how and where money is being spent, or whether it produces effective results."

   Johnson added, "Even this report suggests that we take the President's faith-based initiative 'on faith'!"

   The document cited a number of "barriers" which the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and the Bush administration say need to be removed in order to encourage wider funding availability for religious groups. The first was "A Pervasive Suspicion About Faith-based Organizations," although the report praised "Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions (which) have shifted markedly over the past few decades toward a neutrality framework that honors evenhandedness and pluralism, allowing the Government to treat all potential providers equally without singling out some as being 'too religious' for Government support."

   "But," the survey continues, "Federal officials, and state and local officials participating in Federal formula grant programs, often seem stuck in a 'no-aid,' strict separationist framework..."

   Another "barrier" involved exclusion of religious groups from obtaining funds to operate residences for the elderly and those with disabilities. Current HUD rules do not permit "religious organizations or ones that have religious purposes" to own housing complexes, although they may "sponsor" and initiate" projects. In practice, religious groups simply establish separate non-profit corporations for such ventures. The document criticized standards which prohibited involvement by houses of worship in projects that were "pervasively sectarian" or "too religious."

   Other impediments to "neutral" tax funding of faith-based enterprises included "Excessive Restrictions," "Inappropriate Expansion of Religious Restrictions to New Programs," and "Denial of Faith-Based Organizations' Established Right to Take Religion Into Account in Employment Decisions." The latter has been a touchy issue for the Bush administration, especially after recent exposes of a covert influence-peddling scheme by the Salvation Army to extract White House guarantees that faith groups could accept government money, and still discriminate in employment standards. The fact that the White House paper mentions this as a "barrier" could jeopardize efforts to pass compromise legislation now being crafted by Sen. Joseph Lieberman that would expand funding for faith-based programs, but compel churches to obey local and state civil rights protections.

   "Unlevel Playing Field" relies heavily on the so-called "charitable choice" provision of the 1996 welfare reform act, which for the first time invited religious groups to compete with secular counterparts for government funds in order to operate social service programs without compromising their "religious character." It describes "charitable choice" as a legal instrument which "replaces government suspicion of religious providers with a welcoming environment by giving a 'green light' to expanded collaboration with Government and making such partnerships plausible and possible..." In addition, "It helps current religiously affiliated providers to better fulfill their service mission by permitting established groups ... to get rid of the excessive Government-imposed limits that have wrongly hobbled services offered by religious groups and thus kept them from better integrating a moral dimension into their programs..."

   Other "barrier" are identified, including "The Heavy Weight of Regulations and Other Requirements," and "Requirements to Meet Before Applying for Support." The latter tasks a Department of Labor requirement that grantees "have an extensive financial and administrative management system." In other words, the White House objects to the need for prospective grantees to have in place a system of fiscal accountability before receiving government funds.

   A last-minute amendment inserted into H.R. 7 ("Community Solutions Act), the measure passed by the House of Representatives which is considered a key component in funding the Bush faith-based agenda would permit cabinet-level federal department heads to open $47 billion in public funds to solicitation by faith-based groups. The White House report, though, admits that even with the "limited" current funding for religious organizations, no one has any idea of how much money is being disbursed, to whom it is going, and whether the results of such funding justify continued subsidies.

   ¶    The report rhetorically asks: "What proportion of Federal funding goes to the faith-and community-based organizations that play such key roles in the lives of suffering people and in neighborhoods all across the nation? It is impossible to know the exact percentages across Federal programs, but we have some indication of the share that such organizations receive of some Federal programs..."

   ¶    "To complicate matters, there are no standard Federal definitions of faith-based and community-based organizations, and the databases on discretionary grants do not provide any such identifiers..."

   In terms of fiscal accountability and performance, "Unlevel Playing Field" is equally ignorant. It notes that despite the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) which requires departments to be more "results oriented" and assess the effectiveness of programs:

"The Federal Government has made scant progress in showcasing program performance and managing for results... Indeed, a recent GAO report examining GPRA compliance showed that, in the 28 Federal agencies surveyed, only in 7 did a majority of managers say they used performance information in setting program priorities, adopting new approaches, allocating resources, coordinating program efforts, or setting job expectations for employees..."

   The report even admits that a General Accounting Office survey "shows that results-based management under GPRA has actually decreased in recent years."

   Ignoring the constitutional or political problems of the faith-based initiative, the issue of "results" has raised concerns from social researchers who question the claims of many service providers that a religion-oriented regimen is a successful one. "We've created an office (of faith-based initiatives) out of anecdotes," said University of Pennsylvania criminologist Byron R. Johnson in a recent New York Times interview. While in the past he has argued for a greater role by religious groups in the social welfare mix, Johnson admits that "there is little reliable research proving the effectiveness of religious programs."

   Other researchers, noted the Times, "add that there is scant evidence showing which religious programs show the best results and how they stack up against secular programs."

   For White House strategists, the new report is yet another effort to build momentum behind a faith-based funding initiative which even supporters say faces significant legal and political obstacles. Compromise legislation, such as requiring religious groups which accept public funding to obey anti-discrimination statutes, may woo wavering Democrats, but could undermine many of Bush's religious right supporters.

   Any faith-based enabling legislation is sure to encounter legal challenge in the courts. In Texas, where as governor Mr. Bush encouraged the inclusion of religious groups in the welfare services sector, one jobs training program which included Bible study and other religious activities is already the object of a law suit.

   Ironically, faith-based subsidies may fail on Capitol Hill only to find President Bush using Executive Orders -- a unilateral decree process which during the Clinton era was widely attacked by Republicans as dictatorial -- to make the program a reality. Brookings Institution scholar Jonathan Rauch told the Washington post that Bush could resort to an Executive Order "if the legislation is killed or watered down." The President used two EO's in creating his White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, and in ordering federal agencies to create faith-based liaison sections.

   One administration official signaled, "For all the people who predicted this initiative was dead, it's just getting started. This is a four-year or, if we're lucky enough, eight-year initiative."

[text only]