Faith-Based
Welfare Reform:
A
Constitutional Crises
Part Three
The Smaller Government Agenda
The present welfare reform movement is the historical offspring of a
trend toward smaller government that began during the Ragan presidency. Since then, it has become a mainstream
bipartisan cause. “Reducing the size
of government”, “lowering the costs of doing government business”, “eliminating
bureaucratic layering”, “doing more with less”, and finally “reinventing
government”, have become the only politically correct manner of speech. After the cold war, reengineering of
government programs and their associated bureaucracies, budgetary reductions,
and reductions in military and civil service manning were economically
legitimate causes to a degree. Now, two
decades later, small-government politics have snowballed into a state of
overkill that is increasingly dangerous to the long run interests of the
nation. Few would argue that an overly
large government is ever a good thing.
The larger and more complex the bureaucracy the greater the drain on tax
dollars with likely diminishing value added.
On the other hand, unreliable and ineffective stewardship of vital
functions and services is the certain cost of an overly lean bureaucracy. The issue for every era is determining what
the appropriate balance should be.
Over time, small government politics have dramatically
altered the boundaries between government and private sector industry in all
domains from national defense to who hauls your garbage. Whatever else has
happened, the agenda across the board has been to reduce the government
workforce to the barest minimum and farm its core products and services out to
private sector to accomplish. The justification for disenfranchisement hinges
on the popular assumption that government bureaucracy is always inherently
costly and inefficient. Therefore, as the
rhetoric goes, much of the work typically assigned to government is
accomplished more economically and efficiently with a competitive system of
contractor agencies that supply the requisite manpower and management
infrastructure.
The problem is that bureaucracy is still bureaucracy regardless of
whether it’s composed of a large but coherent civil service, or a workforce
supplied by a plethora of private sector contractors. The American taxpayer is stuck with the bill regardless of who
does the work. All other things being equal, smaller government really doesn’t
mean anything if the costs of sustaining it aren’t reduced as well. For each contract worker, the government
must pay the contractor agency enough money to cover a competitive wage,
employee benefit package, administrative expenses, and a satisfactory net
profit for the owners. Unlike a civil
service bureaucracy, private sector contractors are inherently profit driven in
spite of the public interests involved.
Considering all this, the assumption that private sector contracting
always magically reduces costs or improves the quality of government products
and services, is a highly conjectural if not a completely false. Regardless of these dangers and limitations,
Bill Clinton and Al Gore were notorious for disenfranchising the government
infrastructure in favor of private sector interests. Undoubtedly, there are instances in science, engineering, and
technology where private sector involvement in government business is both
legitimate and essential. Still, that
doesn’t make it the proper shoe in all or even most circumstances. Nor does it mean that the private sector
should hold the administrative hammer in any case. Whatever the inherent limitations, the civil service is the
backbone of our government infrastructure, providing a stable continuity of
stewardship even as political fads and elected officials come and go. Many government programs, both defense
related and domestic, are essential to the long run interests of the nation
even though the costs are substantial.
Moreover, there are domestic programs that are civilly or culturally
sensitive. They need to remain inside
government to protect the nation against private sector monopolies and to
insure the quality and impartiality of the services rendered. A currently notable case in point, is
government administered airport security.
In spite of the political rhetoric to the contrary, the public welfare
system is another notable case in point.
This brings the discussion back to the central question asked earlier in
this commentary. How did an agenda of
private sector contracting get entangled with the PRWORA reform movement in the
first place? Given the discussion
above, the brutally direct answer is smaller government politics in the service
of private sector pork barreling (note). In turn, the issue of “charitable choice”
got involved because of an opportunistic agenda inside the religious
establishment. First, there was the
claim that a welfare system exclusively administered by secular organizations
would become a safe haven for secular humanism, the archrival of the theocratic
right. This notion, however, was bogus
because the contract secular workers would be required to perform their duties
just as if they were civil servants, and thus no agency unique social
engineering was legally admissible.
Moreover, just on the face of inherent tendencies, the potential for
involvement in a social engineering agenda is several orders of magnitude
greater with a religion-based organization.
In fact, it is most likely inevitable.
In spite of this glaring potentiality, the right wing argued that many
established faith-based organizations had a sustained record in charity
work. And therefore they were just as
properly suited and postured to take on the role of welfare administrators as
any candidate non-religious agency. In
any case, the overriding issue was the huge pot of government dollars that was
now up for grabs. With money going to
the private sector, the faith-based charity establishment wanted the lion’s
share if not ultimately the whole enchilada.
With Pentecostal fundamentalist John Ashcroft leading
the charge, the charitable choice clause was a masterstroke for the religious
right. It was the decisive foot in the
door they now vigorously endeavor to exploit.
The theocratic power mongers have once again breached the walls
separating government and religion (Ashcroft
profile) (more Ashcroft).
At least in theory, for the charitable choice agenda to prevail, Congress
and the American public must be convinced that a cumbersome mix of faith-based
and secular organizations will cost less and be more effective in dealing with
the problems of poverty and welfare dependence. Is there any tangible
justification for such a conclusion?
Since the enactment of the TANF program, the number of people on welfare
has steadily dropped overall. However,
this was not due to the intervention of private sector contractors or
charitable choice alternatives in the program.
Rather, it was the unambiguous result of the TANF mandated five-year
limit on how long anyone could draw welfare.
This coupled with obligatory participation in job search, remedial
education, and/or community service in return for a welfare check. In due respect to the issues, the 1996
welfare reform act was motivated by the valid observation that the social
theories underlying the previous AFDC system encouraged people to become
chronically dependent on welfare for a living.
After the five-year time limits went into effect, many of the physically
able eventually left the system for whatever employment they could find. So, in terms of getting people off the
welfare roles, the essential changes instituted by TANF have evidently served
the goal for which they were intended (Reference). Very notably, however, this success was
achieved with the government bureaucracy still predominantly intact and with
only limited participation from faith-based or other private sector
organizations. Further, there is no
substantive evidence that the few participant private sector organizations were
in any way superior in terms of accomplishing the TANF mandated goals. The tangible underlying problem with the old
AFDC system was not bureaucratic inefficiencies within the civil service per
se, but rather congressional legislation that forced the civil service system
to operate on a bad welfare theory.
Is TANF ultimately the correct solution or just a political indulgence
initiated during a time of economic prosperity? The jury is still out on this and will likely remain that way for
quite some time. For the moment,
welfare reform presses on without substantive participation from the private
sector. Indeed, if it cannot be
successful without private sector involvement, it is unlikely to be successful
with private sector involvement.
Ultimately, the question boils down to what practical value is there in
contracting out to the private sector.
On this point, whatever the long run consequences of TANF turn out to
be, there is something curiously insensible about weaning the existing
population of welfare recipients off dependence on government money only to
allow the religious charity organizations themselves to become addicted. It only serves to entangle the government
and the private sector in a corrupt and constitutionally destructive
relationship.
Because of the reductions in the number of people
drawing welfare, there have been some tangible cost savings with the new
system. Because of the current agenda
under the present administration, however, the resulting savings are being
neutralized in the service of entangling the government in other ways with the
religious agenda (news
article) (Vouchers). Consequently, there is no reason to believe that the overall cost
of government-funded welfare and related charity grants won’t continue to
escalate. A less costly and more
efficient welfare system simply won’t be accomplished by replacing the existing
government bureaucracy with a plethora of charity and social service
organizations each having their own unique internal bureaucracies and business
agendas. The resulting super
bureaucracy will ultimately be larger, more complex, expensive, and infinitely
more difficult to audit and enforce regulatory standards. Further, if bad politics hadn’t turned
welfare reform into a candy-shop for the private sector in the first place, the
whole issue of religious involvement and First Amendment violations would never
have become a player.
Unfortunately, the social and economic dangers haven’t done much to
deter the advocates of “partnerships” between religion and government. They appeal to intervening social problems
like occupational indolence, drug addiction, divorce, teenage pregnancies, and
so on to justify their cause. In some
way, all of these maladies are believed to be causally or incidentally linked
to crime, unemployment, and inadequate childcare among the nation’s poor. The classic notion is that the antecedents
of poverty and joblessness stem from insufficient cultivation of the character
traits underlying self-control, social responsibility, and honest hard
work. In addition, since it’s so often
touted to be instrumental to such things, it is completely reasonable to the
hard-core faithful that religion should be steward of the new welfare
system. The proponents go on to assert
that faith-based charity organizations are more likely to understand the
problems of the people in the communities they serve. The inevitable assertion is that they can reach and redeem many
among the needy that a government agent or non-religious private sector
alternative cannot. Such claims often
come attended with glowing reports about the miracles wrought by faith-based
organizations and how inexpensive they were to achieve.
Although appealing to some, these augments suffer
from severe shortfalls. Religious
charities have undoubtedly helped some people, but claims of success within the
larger population tend not to hold up when closely examined. In addition, there is the inherent problem
of achieving fair representation among the various religious persuasions and
denominations each having a stake in matters of faith and community
outreach. Neither religion in general
nor any religious persuasion in particular has any exclusive claim to the keys
of character building. There are far
too many people with alternative religious and philosophical orientations, who
demonstrate the marks of economic and social success in life to ever suggest
otherwise. Not everyone’s circumstances
and predilections are the same and thus no single moral or motivational shoe
will ever fit all. A given faith-based
organization may be institutionally incapable of relating beneficially to the
life circumstances or unique challenges facing a given welfare recipient and
not possess the wisdom of insight to realize it. At best, they can help some of the people some of the time, but
they can’t come close to helping all of the people all of the time.
By their very nature, faith-based organizations carry
tangible biases regarding moral values and social engineering theory. In virtually any instance, the specifics of
their biases won’t enjoy universal acceptance.
They may be racially, religiously, or socially prejudiced, and therefore
potentially in conflict with the beliefs of either the welfare recipient, the
pluralistic interests of the larger community, or both. This creates problems for establishing
equitable standards within the government’s selection process that defy
transcendence. Whatever the
government’s selection criterion might turn out to be, it couldn’t possibly
accommodate all private sector organizations having legitimate stakes in
matters of faith and charity causes.
The hard truth is that any organization that is authorized government
money and authority to dispense welfare entitlements enjoys a competitive edge
over the organizations that are not so authorized. In such case, the un-funded organizations face an undercutting of
their ability to perform the useful work they can. Forcing the welfare recipients under the tutelage of the funded
organization may actually deter the recipients from connecting or sustaining
connection with the kind of motivational support and guidance that best suits
their circumstances. In such case, the
funded organizations end up enhancing their own influence at the expense of
both the welfare recipients and the eclectic effectiveness of the larger
religious and human service community.
Anyone who asserts that welfare recipients don’t have a “charitable
choice” under a government run system, are really indulging in political
sophistry. When was it that any charity
organization didn’t have the right to engage in community outreach and thus
assist the interested and willing? When
was it that any welfare recipient didn’t have the right to solicit guidance and
support from among the various churches and charity organizations? If some non-profit organization is so
sterling in the help it provides, then the word will get around and both
private sector donations and the needy will come knocking without needing
government money and authority to leverage attention. The truth is that government funding is advantageous in terms of
achieving the kind of official status that funnels the welfare eligible to the
organization’s door. Although always
touted to be in the name of righteous causes, the result may end up being
beneficial only to the organization’s proprietors and not to the poor and
underprivileged they allegedly serve.
Finally, the blunt truth is that poverty has been an inherent problem
since the dawn of civilization and its complete eradication is a distant ideal
at best. Undoubtedly, there are a
significant number of citizens in this country that are poor and under privileged. Still, being poor and under privileged is a
condition that must be reckoned against some tangible objective standard. That is, there is a large difference between
simply being poor or under privileged and being completely destitute. For instance, the United States Census
measures poverty against a threshold standard of yearly income relative to
family size. In comparison, it is
unlikely that the standards used by most other nations are nearly so generous.
When all is considered, the percentages of officially poor or destitute
Americans versus the objective depth of their collective plight, comes nowhere
near to matching the problems of poverty and outright starvation in virtually
every other part of the world. Relative
to global conditions, it would be grossly unfair to judge that our nation has
performed so badly in keeping poverty levels in check (some
statistics). Notably also, we have
managed to do quite well without feeding the religious charities with tax
dollars. In fact, one of the salient
reasons that so many people migrate to this country (either legally or
illegally) is because of the rich and often exploitable system of welfare
entitlements that residency affords (example). A private sector administered welfare system
with diminished government oversight is bound to be even more amenable to
exploitation. In fact, the very process
of implementing the TANF system has created a transitional condition of great
national vulnerability. Quite
predictability, powerful right wing factions are vigorously endeavoring to
exploit it. With their ceaseless
propaganda about cultural permissiveness and moral decay as justification, they
are doing their deadly best to transform the public welfare system into a
government-funded religious establishment.
The fundamentalist solution for saving society from itself hasn’t
changed very much in nineteen centuries.
Give them the throne of power and authority, they declare, and fashion
the laws in accordance with their doctrinal and moral mandates, and all of
society’s ills will magically shrink away.
The trouble is that the history of their religion’s participation in the
world does not justify the claim. In
fact, their religion is by no means beyond accountability where matters of
societal ills are concerned (Ten Commandments). The nation’s collective efforts to keep
poverty, illiteracy, and related problems in check will never benefit by
legislating an overemphasis on religion.
Take for example the failed system of Roman Catholicism from Mexico to
the tip of South America. Their
overlord brand of theocracy tolerates of no competitors, civil or religious,
and this has inherently fostered weak and corrupt government. Governments that fail to provide the
necessary and sufficient systems of social welfare entitlements that their
citizenry need. Of course, if strong
secular systems of social welfare were allowed to come into being, then the
citizenry would no longer be so dependent on the church in times of need. That kind material and psychological
dependency the church dearly endeavors to sustain, and that precludes allowing
superior independent systems of state run welfare to exist. Although a sectarian conglomerate of both
protestant and catholic players is behind the current faith based welfare
movement, the same underlying motive of church versus state power and authority
is nevertheless in play. The imposition
of “charitable choice” and “faith based” social welfare are decisively
insidious steps toward eventually consuming the United States of America under
an archaic and totalitarian theocratic design. The great strength, vitality,
and promise of America is in its plurality and diversity, be it racial, ethnic,
occupational, religious, philosophical, or in matters of personal lifestyle.
These precious freedoms are the very things that fundamentalist religion has
always openly and even violently sought to discourage. The precious freedom of differing points of
view and choices about matters of religion and morality can only exist in a
nation where separation between government and religion is enforced.
The bottom line is that the American taxpayer should not accept paying
for a public welfare system that stands to be religiously monopolistic,
socially discriminatory, increasingly costly, and constitutionally
destructive. Undoubtedly, it is
difficult to fashion and sustain a welfare system that is completely impartial
in matters of race, ethnic background, religion, or lifestyle
circumstances. However, a civil service
administered welfare system, which is bound to constitutionally enforced
standards of neutrality, has at least a reasonable chance of approximating that
ideal. In contrast, a welfare system
inherently biased by an evil mix of religious and profit motives can never
possibly come close. The Sixth Article and First Amendment were explicitly
intended to guarantee freedom of religion and therefore also protection from conscription
to religion. All citizens of this
nation, regardless of their social or economic status, have the sacred civil
right to such entitlements without coercion or conscription by religion or any
other factionist social ideology. The
“charitable choice” and “faith based” legislative agenda is indicative of a
constitutionally anarchistic trend in American politics that threatens those
basic civil rights. The pragmatically
and constitutionally valid answer is to scrap private sector involvement altogether
and distance the core welfare programs from the politically charged issues of
“faith-based” participation. Any
argument about the present legislative snowball being impossible to stop is an
insidious illusion. If we were able to
repeal AFDC after all these years, then we can certainly turn back from having
the TANF program corrupted by the private sector opportunism that the
“charitable choice” loophole has fostered.
To allow any faction, particularly even biblical religion, to achieve
stewardship over our public welfare system, places the Constitution and the
future of our basic civil rights as citizens and taxpayers in the gravest kind
of danger. The only tangible solution
is to repeal the charitable choice clause and thereby have done with the president
Bush’s faith-based extrapolations altogether.
This nation’s government stands on a vital balance of power between the
rule of law and the rule of democracy.
The underlying assumption being that both are required in a just and
free society. The juxtaposition of
power is guardian against prejudicial mob rule, but also intends a government
for all of the people, not just some of the people. Among other things, the Constitution was crafted to protect
minority rights against the tyranny of the majority. For the same reason, however, it is also intended to be guardian
against the injustices that can be wrought by any powerful minority. The religious right wing is such a minority. They are the perpetrators of the faith-based
movement and they have gained sufficient empowerment to steer all too many
politicians down a very dangerous path.
If our elected officials are collectively subtending the
Constitution in the service of factional religious interests, then a vital
balance of legal power has come undone.
The present Republican administration is not the sole perpetrator of the
faith-based agenda. During the last
presidential campaign, Al Gore drummed heavily on
the charitable choice and faith-based welfare stump. And one should not forget that it was President Bill Clinton who
signed the TANF legislation into law with the charitable choice clause
attached. Now, with Joe Lieberman and
company fueling the initiative from the Democratic side, an influential bipartisan
coalition is visibly operative, one that is indicative of a dangerous epidemic
of factional corruption infecting our entire political system.
When the point is reached where we can no longer trust our elected
officials to protect, defend, and support the Constitution against the wages of
centrist compromise politics, then it is time to elect some patriots and
statesman that will, and run the anti-constitutional deadbeats out of
government. Help restore our government
and this country’s domestic agenda to constitutional health. Familiarize
yourself with the agenda and voting record of your local congressional
representatives and tell them what you expect.
Simply don’t vote for them if they are not coming across with the right
stuff (Resource)
(Resource). Register to
vote. The right wing thrives on
public ignorance and low voter turnout.
Write the news syndicates, or build a web page in protest. Join or support organizations like the
Americans United For Separation of Church and State, the American Civil
Liberties Union, and People for the American Way. They have demonstrated track records of frontline opposition
against these movements. We must stand
against this irresponsible “faith-based” welfare reform agenda and its
antecedent charitable choice clause.
Ask yourself, wouldn’t it be political suicide for the President or any
other elected official to advocate repeal of the First, Thirteenth, or
Fourteenth Amendments? In view of that,
it should also be political suicide for them to treat those vital articles of
American law as if they didn’t exist.
They are integral to the supreme law of this nation. Demand that Congress obey the mandates
therein, demand that the President obey, and demand that the Supreme Court
uphold them! Each one of us has but one
voice and one vote to apply to the political issues of our time. Still, what each of us does with ours may
very well decide the fate of our Nation’s sacred traditions of liberty and
justice for all time to come. (Litigation)