[NYTr] Billions for Christ: Bush Regime's "Faith-Based" Spending Run Amok

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Truthout - Nov 23, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112307B.shtml

Faith-Based Spending Goes Relatively Unchecked

By Thomas D. Williams

    For the past six years, President George W. Bush's administration
has spent billions of dollars to largely aid Christian faith-based
groups, in assisting prison inmates as well as the poor and
less-fortunate persons here and worldwide. Yet many experts and
investigators nationwide agree government controls auditing this
spending, or checking into whether the religious groups are illegally
using this federal funding to promote their faiths, are weak or
nonexistent.

    Federal funding of a host of non-faith-based social programs can be
critical in child or adult health, housing and other subsistence aid to
the poor or disadvantaged. However, with tight or even regular federal
budgets, waste in one program can adversely impact others.

    Several inquiries and complaints dug up a host of systemic dangers
and violations of the rules and law resulting in questionable or wasted
spending.

    In just one instance, a 2006 US Government Accountability Office
inquiry discovered: "Four of the 13 faith-based organizations that
offered voluntary religious activities - such as prayer or worship -
did not appear to understand the requirement to separate these
activities in time or location from their program services funded with
federal (dollars)." And, the GAO concluded: independent audits apply
only to religious organizations spending $500,000 or more. As well,
federal administration is costly. "Since fiscal year 2002, the five
federal agency centers handling the funds estimated that they had
cumulatively expended more than $24 million on administrative
activities," the GAO concluded.

    But Stephen J. Law, deputy secretary of labor, told the GAO:
"Although receiving limited attention in the draft (GAO) report, the
most significant aspect of the study is what the GAO's investigation
did not find. In all of its research, interviews, document reviews,
site visits and other inquiries, the GAO found no evidence of
discrimination in favor of or against, any organization on the basis of
religion, and no hint of political or other inappropriate motivations
within the grant-making process." Nevertheless, that GAO report is
hardly the only extraordinary critique of some of the lavish federal
faith-based expenditures, which certainly are not habitual with all the
faiths or groups seeking federal funding.

    An investigation by the Urban Institute, which analyzes social and
economic programs and issues, concluded in 2005 that state and local
officials found many faith-based groups "lacked the capacity to meet
government contracting requirements." Yet, said the institute, its
inquiry found "that many state and local policies lack effective
oversight of such dimensions as religious content and program
participants' ability to choose alternatives to faith-based service
providers."

    An Iowa federal judge found in December 2006 that a federally
funded evangelical program inside a state prison was simultaneously
offering help to converts and eliminating rehabilitation programs for
inmates failing to show deference toward the evangelical faith. "For
all practical purposes," Judge Robert W. Pratt said, "the state has
literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the
walls of one of its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that
congregation, i.e., InnerChange employees, authority to control the
spiritual, emotional, and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates."
Pratt's ruling is being appealed by InnerChange.

    On the other hand, a Christianity Today article praised
InnerChange's work . "(InnerChange) has a proven record of
rehabilitation - eight percent recidivism for graduates, according to a
University of Pennsylvania study of a similar program in Texas. This
compares with more than 60 percent recidivism nationally. The
commission understands the urgency of these programs, because this
year, 600,000 prisoners will be released. Within three years, more than
two-thirds will be re-arrested."

    Well-known evangelist Pat Robertson, chairman of the powerful
Christian Broadcasting Network, agrees wholeheartedly with the
effectiveness of professional religious rehabilitation of hard-core
criminal convicts. In fact, Robertson too praised InnerChange's
efforts. "It is faith in Christ plus a network of loving Christian
support groups rather than psychological rehabilitation that brings
about a recidivism rate for inmates helped by Prison Fellowship that is
four times more effective than the recidivism rate of inmates released
from government-backed, secular prisons without such help," said
Robertson on a his site.

    Robertson said he sees the same snafus others critical of the
federal faith-based initiatives say they are seeing, but he wants to
find a legal way to keep those federal dollars flowing to his and other
religions. Robertson proposed that groups wanting federal assistance
could request "objective" audits by the federal Office of Faith-Based
Initiatives. The faith-based applicants would have to prove their
"financial integrity, record-keeping, supervision and basic
accountability." If they proved worthy, he said, they would be listed
in an annual government registry.

    However, the faith-based initiative and other federal offices'
handling of audits were exactly what the GAO suggested needed
substantial improvements.

    If millions of federal faith-based funds are difficult to track
inside the United States, consider the difficulties of scrutinizing
those dollars and the rules against using them to promote religion
outside the United States.

    A year ago, the Inspector General for the US Agency for
International Development audited emergency plan, prevention and care
activities in four USAID missions in South America and Africa. The
inspection found that of 21 USAID-financed operations in fiscal year
2005, thirteen - or 62 percent - were not achieved. What's more, the
faith-based funding for Guyana's Emergency Plan activities could not go
forward as a result of tardy funding, inadequate advertisements and
less-than-capable local organizations handling the grants, the IG said.
Also, USAID and an assisting agency did not always provide needed
guidance and oversight, the inquiry concluded.

    "The ... effort," a program director, S. Ken Yamashita, replied,
"arose very rapidly into one of the world's largest and most
complicated development programs within just a few years. This
accelerated rate of growth has required tremendous innovation in both
programmatic and management terms, in addition to ongoing adaptation to
new environments and lessons learned. Change of this nature will
continue for the foreseeable future, and as it reflects input from
country programs, USG agencies and external sources, PEPFAR will
continue to improve its processes for performance and quality."

    This kind of weak oversight raises questions as well about whether
federal support and funding could create serious security problems
inside Iraq's war zone. Christian evangelical groups, aided by the Bush
administration, have been planned to operate there, or have operated in
that dangerous daily war zone in the face of hostile Islamic
terrorists. In at least one telltale instance last April, officials of
the Department of Defense began promoting an aggressive Christian group
that promises to bring its views in a "crusade" to Iraq. Operation
Straight Up "is working to help military children and families become
stronger through faith-based entertainment," wrote The American Forces
Press Service in April. The story appeared on the America Supports You
Internet site sponsored by the Pentagon. It was initially reported in
an outside publication by The Nation Operation Straight Up is
evangelical. Its leaders are former boxer and kick boxer Jonathan
Spinks and Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin.

    In another instance, the faith-based organization of one of
President Bush's religious mentors, Franklin Graham, has received
$31,255,596 in overseas assistance from USAID from fiscal years 2001 to
2005, according to an October 2006 four-part Boston Globe investigation.

    Samaritan's Purse, a nondenominational evangelical Christian
organization, provides assistance to the disadvantaged around the
world, including work in Iraq. For some, these latter operations inside
a dangerous war zone by a naturally intrusive and proselytizing
Christian organization in the face of Islamic terrorist groups creates
serious questions of security not only for itself, but for US and Iraqi
military troops and civilians as well.

    However, a spokeswoman for Samaritan's Purse, Barbara Schroeder,
described the situation from the organization's perspective:
"Samaritan's Purse supports an evangelical church in Baghdad. In
addition to the evangelical outreach this church is able to provide to
the community, it also furnishes malnourished Muslim and Christian
families in the area with hundreds of high-protein food packages every
month. Additionally, more than 95,000 gift-filled shoe boxes were sent
to needy Iraqi children last year through our Operation Christmas Child
project.

    "Security in many parts of the world is a concern, and it is our
desire that no believer suffer harm because of persecution. We are
extremely careful in the way we conduct our projects, especially when
there is possible danger for those involved. Our international staff is
trained to handle security incidents and we do have a director of
security who is aware of conditions around the world and the current
situations our staff are experiencing."

    More recently, in November, the leaders of six faith-based
organizations have come under scrutiny by Republican Senator Charles
Grassley of Iowa. He is investigating a half-dozen television
evangelists to find out if they avoided taxes on for-profit activities
or used their ministries for personal gain. While religious
organizations are mostly exempt from federal taxes, they must pay taxes
if they are involved in for-profit businesses, and employees can't use
church property primarily for personal gain.

    Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee,
said: "I'm following up on complaints from the public and news coverage
regarding certain practices at six ministries. The allegations involve
governing boards that aren't independent and allow generous salaries
and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls
Royces. I don't want to conclude that there's a problem, but I have an
obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who
donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with
the tax code." The allegations are yet to be validated or dismissed as
unreliable.

    Five federal agencies, led and controlled by the White House and
the US Department of Health and Human Services, administer the
faith-based funding. They are parceled out to religious organizations,
sometimes directly and other times through state and local governments.
Some organizations receiving them have more than one identity. As a
result, the web of paperwork and dollar pass-throughs can be a tough
thicket to audit.

    The rules too are difficult to enforce, based on what those
critical of the process, including accountants, say is its weak
auditing system. The faith-based recipients are not supposed to use
federal dollars to support activities such as prayer, worship,
religious instruction or lobbying for converts. They must offer
religious activities at different times and locations from services
supported by federal dollars. And religious groups cannot discriminate
based on their faith when rendering services to the public.

    Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives in January 2001 to strengthen social work by
religious groups. The president, like Robertson a born-again Christian,
divined that religious leaders are among the best-qualified to help the
underfed, rehabilitate the sick and the imprisoned, and assist the poor
and underprivileged in obtaining housing, medical care and the basic
needs for living.

    "Our new approach is compassionate," Bush told Congress in a
budget-funding message on February 28, 2001. "It will reinvigorate our
civil society by putting government on the side of faith-based and
other local initiatives that work - that actually help Americans escape
drugs, lives of crime, poverty and despair." In announcing the
faith-based initiatives a month earlier, he said: "... faith-based
charities should be able to compete for funding on an equal basis, and
in a manner that does not cause them to sacrifice their mission." One
of any religion's prime missions, of course, is to promote their
particular other-worldly messages.

    And, because most faiths, particularly the conservative evangelical
leaders Bush feels most inspired by, have prime missions to preach to
and sometimes convert the poor and needy, those missions can readily
conflict with the US Constitution's mandate separating church and
state. The First Amendment says in part: "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof ..." And, its establishment clause prevents Congress
or the president from establishing a national religion or favoring one
religion over another. It does not prohibit even-handed federal aid or
assistance to religions.


[Thomas "Dennie" Williams is a former state and federal court
reporter, specializing in investigations, for the Hartford Courant.
Since the 1970s, he has written extensively about irregularities in the
Connecticut Superior Court, Probate Court systems for disciplining both
judges and lawyers for misconduct and the failures of the Pentagon and
the VA to assist sick veterans returning from war. He can be reached at
denniew at optonline.net.]