Aside from the budget deficit, the domestic issue on which the gap between presidential rhetoric and the administration's actual record may be largest is that hardy perennial, the Faith-Based Initiative.
As you may recall, the idea of providing public support for religious organizations who are tackling some of the nation's most pervasive social problems has always been the centerpiece of George W. Bush's claim to be a "compassionate conservative." Yet time and time again (as richly documented by the Progressive Policy Institute's Will Marshall and Anne Kim last year), the president has failed to put his money where his mouth is.
Some of you may remember that the original director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, John DiIulio, resigned in frustration at the lack of interest in the subject within the top levels of the administration, granting an interview in which he basically said there was no serious policy apparatus in the White House.
Now a second shoe has dropped. David Kuo, former deputy director of the same office vacated by DiIulio earlier, has penned an article for Beliefnet.com charging that the administration had a "minimal commitment" to the faith-based initiative, particularly in terms of making it a budget priority and of building support across party lines to overcome the reflexive opposition of some Congressional Democrats.
Kuo's charge is true with respect to both the most and least controversial elements of Bush's original faith-based initiative. The former is the idea of letting faith-based organizations receive federal grants without having to comply with the usual rules prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs among the staff and beneficiaries of publicly-financed social efforts. Many Democrats, and some Republicans, legitimately oppose that idea, and the administration has done little or nothing to compromise on the issue, preferring to charge that "liberals" want to discriminate against people of faith. The far less controversial proposal was the original faith-based initiative's centerpiece: allowing a charitable contribution deduction for taxpayers who don't itemize deductions. This particular proposal has been championed in Congress by Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Rick Santorum (R-PA).
Yet the administration has hardly lifted a finger to support that idea. The charitable contribution for non-itemizers was left on the cutting room floor when the administration designed its big tax cut proposal in 2001, making it clear the White House valued lower taxes for high earners more than indirect support for the faith-based initiatives. And in the latest Bush budget, the charity tax cut doesn't show up, either, amidst statements by Treasury officials that maybe the whole concept is flawed.
In an administration allegedly devoted to broad-based "tax relief" and to support for the civic sector in addressing social problems, this inaction, now bordering on contempt, is very telling. As DiIulio charged, it's beginning to look like the whole faith-based initiative is just campaign fodder, and a convenient excuse for cutting or scrapping public-sector programs aimed at addressing national challenges like poverty and homelessness.
Democrats who support an active partnership between government and the civic center -- including faith-based organizations -- need to speak up, and provide the leadership in breaking the impasse on this issue that has been so consistently lacking from the White House. And the president needs to stop implicitly suggesting that we accept his determination to "rally the armies of compassion" on faith alone.
