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Judge Faith-Based Services On Outcomes

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 20, 2008

Civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson doesn't just disagree with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama about his call for greater personal responsibility in the black community.

Jackson also disagrees with Obama on allowing faith-based organizations to receive federal money for social programs. Obama recently said he would expand the president's efforts, a stance liberals say has shifted him too far to the political center.

But just as President Bush was right to help religious groups help the needy, Obama is wise to want to continue the effort. Faith-based programs do not violate the Constitution's sanctions against the intrusion of religion in government affairs. Bush's directive simply required that federal agencies not discriminate against religious organizations when awarding money for programs that help those in need.

Sometimes, his directive was taken too far, such as when Tampa's domestic-abuse shelter, The Spring, was asked to resubmit a federal grant proposal to include a faith-based component.

More important than a religious component is a program's effectiveness, no matter who runs it.

"Those who advocate on behalf of huge government antipoverty programs often focus on increasing the levels of spending instead of achieving results," Florida's Jim Towey, who once headed Bush's White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, wrote in the Washington Post last month.

"Take Head Start, the government's multibillion-dollar early-childhood initiative. President Bush tried to build accountability and to tie funding to outcomes rather than follow the well-traveled path of perpetual funding. He lost, and so did many qualified faith-based programs that remain spectators because of the stranglehold that current grantees have on funding."

Towey is right. There must be greater accountability. An organization's religious leanings should be secondary to a program's effectiveness. That is where the debate on faith-based initiatives needs to focus.

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