Charitable Choice as Neoliberal Social Welfare Strategy

True compassion means suffering with the poor and acting on the consciousness of your suffering -- and we should shift power away from the bureaucracy to the people in the compassionate community, who actually deal with these problems. -- Jeb Bush (in Olasky, 2000: 13). Compassionate conservatism means: "I'm sorry, we can't help you." -- Martin Goch, Letters to Solon.com (April 2, 2001) GEORGE W. BUSH'S "COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM" WAS WIDELY RIDICULED as oxymoronic, notwithstanding his numerous stump speeches promoting it as a new and promising political philosophy. Skeptics who concluded that Bush's campaign of vacuous slogans portended ideological confusion and policy uncertainty should he be elected president were quickly disabused by his swift and bold political initiative to cut taxes and reduce social spending. The centerpiece of Bush's "new conservatism" is the expansion of faith-based "charitable choice," a provision in Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform law that allowed religious charities to compete equally with other nonprofit providers for grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In a March 19 White House meeting with black ministers, Bush called for "rallying the armies of compassion," linking up religious and community groups that run prison ministries, food banks, homeless shelters, and so forth. Under President Bush's plan, as long as they agree not to u se prayer or worship in the programs, faith-based welfare organizations would be free to compete for federal contracts and vouchers from the departments of Justice, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services to pay for social programs, including child welfare and after-school care, crime prevention, job training, and hunger relief. The Bush administration's faith-based legislation has been greeted with considerable apprehension by civil libertarians (Willis, 2001; Press, 2001) and religious leaders of the Right and the Left (Robinson, 2001; Goodstein, 2001; Waldman, 2001). Their concerns about blurring the boundaries separating church and state are dismissed by charitable choice advocates with the reply that government support for faith-based agency work is nothing new, and that there is no evidence of corrupting influences in the many programs administered in this way (Dilulio, 200la). Yet the faith-based issue is not simply an academic matter or of concern only to constitutional experts. Despite its innocent appearance, this policy package has the potential for great social harm; it is an assault on the general welfare and will diminish the collective spirit vital to a genuine democracy. George W. Bush's presidency is becoming what candidate Bush promised it would not be: a sharp rightward shift. Republicans are using several old pol itical ploys to conceal the betrayal, such as saying one thing and doing another and repeating falsehoods often enough that they become truth in the minds of voters. Charitable choice advocates say that their proposals are egalitarian and will enhance freedom by promoting self-reliance. As such, the surest way to help people achieve equality of fortune (Boleyn-Fitzgerald, 1999) is to reduce government welfare and restrict help to those who are "truly" disadvantaged through no fault of their own. Newt Gingrich (1995:71), one of the early fonts of compassionate conservative wisdom, asserts: "The welfare state reduces the poor from citizens to clients." President Bush (2001) recently proclaimed: "It is one of the great goals of my administration to invigorate the spirit of involvement and citizenship. We will encourage faith-based and community programs without changing their mission. We will help all in their work to change hearts while keeping a commitment to pluralism." The promotion of pluralism and cultural inclusion are in truth the last things on the minds of conservatives, who fear the prospect of federal grants to Moonies, Scientologists, Krishnas, and the Nation of Islam (Robinson, 2001; Waldman, 2001). …