In 2000 George Bush campaigned on his vision of "compassionate conservatism," a call for the private sector, including the religious community, to take the lead in providing social services to the nation's people. The Faith Based Initiative was a much ballyhooed part of this -- an effort by which government funds could be used by non-profits, including religious groups, to serve others, as long as they didn't use the funds to proselytize (the biggie issue).
As George Bush considers his legacy, apparently he sees these as his biggest contribution to American life.
David Kuo has become a consistent critic of Mr. Bush, speaking as one who was an official within the department overseeing these initiatives. Kuo believes that this program has been an abject failure and wonders of President Bush has lost it. Read below, Kuo's thoughts, and perhaps you too will start to wonder. I've been wondering!!!
As I documented in Tempting Faith and wrote here for Beliefnet in 2005, Bush's "compassionate conservatism" and the faith-based initiative have been among the great charades of the modern presidency. The effort's failures have been so vast (promises of $8 billion a year targeted to help faith-based and secular 'community' organizations have resulted in less 10% of that over the last six years; cuts of more than 100 domestic policy programs; scores of billions in funding cuts for anti-poverty programs; Katrina) virtually no objective observer in Washington calls the efforts a success, let alone something that would inform an ideology. It isn't a close call. That he can't - or won't - see that does not bode well for the rest of his presidency and should motivate us to pray ever harder for him as our president.
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