"The Federal Bureau of Charity"

Published 15 May 2001

(word count: 756)

The President's "Faith-based initiative" is still making the occasional cameo appearance in the conformist media and most professional word jockeys are still missing the real story.  That qualifies it for Loose Cannon fodder.

When I first heard the Bush plan announced on my local conservative drive time talk radio station I felt my mind slip into boggle mode.  The boggling effect was not in response to the actual plan - designed to forcibly redistribute taxpayer's money to politically nose-cozy charitable organizations - since these schemes are, unfortunately, commonplace.  What flabbered my gast was wondering where a libertarian would even begin to address the endlessly appalling mischief of this particular scam.

I thought I'd found my answer in a WorldNetDaily.com poll entitled  "Which most closely matches your thoughts on Bush's faith-based office in White House?"  Of the ten possible responses, these five immediately stimulated my optical nerves:

Step in the wrong direction

Violation of church, state separation

It's not authorized by Constitution

It poses a danger to churches

Another wasteful government giveaway

Regrettably, the poll allowed only one mouse click per customer, snuffing out an "all of the above" type response.  But the list did serve as a good starting point.  So good, I eventually realized, that every freedom-oriented group in the country would have these bases covered long before any opinion of mine could find its way onto a readable surface, paper or digital.  So I decided to dig deeper, which would actually require some - gasp - research.

Virtually all controversy, it turns out, clusters around the Separation of God and Government issue.  Only one writer that I'm aware of, a libertarian, has brought up the Tenth Amendment point.  Hint: If the Constitution doesn't specifically say the Fed Gov can do something, then it can't do it.  No governmentite has any Constitutional authority to ladle taxpayer dough into a charity’s soup bowl.  So why are Republicans and Democrats alike, along with their enabling media pundits, silent about the Tenth Amendment?  Because they all want the equal opportunity to ignore it.  Sorta like a secret handshake.  Don't annoy me with the Tenth Amendment and I won't irritate you with it.  And, horrors, don't remind the public of it.  Prez Bush is just the latest in a very long line of politicians of both animal mascot species who take the oath to preserve and protect the Constitution only to violate it at earliest opportunity.

The Faith-Based Initiative is unconstitutional on Tenth Amendment grounds alone.

My other point tracks back to the aforementioned local conservative drive time talk show host who was positively giddy over the Money for Morals scheme and justified it to caller after caller by bleating  "It has bipartisan support!"  That, rather than boggling, set off the burglar alarm in my head.  Every libertarian knows it's time to hide your wallet and check your Bill of Rights whenever politicians belly up to the Bipartisan Buffet.

Exhaustive research by the crack Loose Cannon investigative team into the front page story of my local daily which carried the original announcement of the Faith-Based Initiative uncovered the following revelation: "At the same time Bush moved to enhance Americorps and the other national-service programs developed in the Clinton administration."  Aha!  Was I onto something here?  Americorps, please note, is the Democrat’s do-good-with-taxpayer’s-money version of the Republican’s "Faith-based initiative."  Also from the same article: "Republicans had repeatedly sought to eliminate the program because of its cost."  So why didn’t they eliminate Americorps?  Because of the politicians’ definition of Bipartisans: “If we Democrats and Republicans work together to divvy up taxpayer booty we can both buy partisans.”

Oh, sure, plenty of pundits have gnashed their incisors over benevolent groups having their principles and their ideals and their goals corrupted by the blizzard of greenbacks.  But what will be lost are not goals but souls.  When I say corruption I mean plain, ordinary, old-fashioned, time-honored American style corruption: money.  A future news story might read like this:

The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Inner City Misery was today charged with defrauding the Federal Bureau of Charity.  Undisclosed sources claim that the humanitarian organization handed out gruel and goat cheese in their soup kitchen near the corner of Down and Out and then filed reports that the money had been spent on ham and eggs.  The skimmed funds are allegedly resting comfortably in the bank accounts of the organization director and the head of the local government oversight agency.

Are there any better scams around than the good old Bipartisan Public/Private Partnership?

- by Garry Reed