Posted on 05/17/2002 10:34:40 AM PDT by jgrubbs
Dear Reader:
I am taking the unusual step in sending this editorial comment to all of our e-newsletter subscribers because there is an issue before Congress that I feel is so important that it needs you to write letters to get it to pass
Several weeks ago I was invited to an important briefing at the White House in which President Bush outlined the CARE Act (Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment) which would put faith-based ministries on an equal footing for government programs for helping the homeless and doing other social programs for which secular organizations now get funding. The government will not fund the ministries themselves but if a Christian ministry is helping the poor, no longer will they be denied government funding for those programs just because they are faith-based.
I know of this personally because for many years I was on the board of directors of a small inner-city ministry in our area that was denied any government help at all because they had a chapel in the homeless center.
The President told us at this White House briefing how it is an uphill fight in Congress. He said that they were trying to get it passed by Memorial Day but they need an out-pouring of letters, phone calls and emails to the members of Congress urging them to vote in favor of this faith-based initiative.
Here is some of the information that I learned about when I was at the briefing:
We specifically need you to email the Senators from your state who are members of the Committee on Finance. You can email them by clicking on their names below. Democrats Republicans CARE Act - Overviewhttp://santorum.senate.gov/careact.html The Lieberman-Santorum CARE Act aims to tap into America's renewed spirit of unity, community and responsibility in the wake of September 11th to better respond to pressing social problems and ultimately help more people in need. To do so, it would leverage new support and resources for a broad range of community and faith-based groups - including those that are already working cooperatively with government to provide critical services and improve people's lives, and those who want to become part of that partnership. This is a bipartisan initiative, drafted with the President's support. It builds on the President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative, embracing many of the same principles and the same programs.
This diverse universe of charitable organizations -- which proved once again after the terrorist attacks how effective they are in meeting real human needs - is uniquely Americcan and forms the backbone of our civil society. The CARE Act would strengthen that backbone through a broad array of tools and strategies - 1) tax incentives to spur more private charitable giving; 2) innovative programs to promote savings and economic self-sufficiency for low-income families; 3) technical assistance to help smaller social services providers do more good works; 4) narrowly-targeted efforts to remove unfair barriers facing faith-based groups in competing fairly for federal aid; and 5) additional federal funding for essential social service programs. Increased Social Service Needs
Decrease in Giving
Thank you for responding. Also, you can post your comments on our website to state your thoughts about the CARE Act and to report what response you get from the Senators you contact.
Stephen Strang
Max Baucus, MT
John D. Rockefeller IV, WV
Tom Daschle, SD
John Breaux, LA
Kent Conrad, ND
Bob Graham, FL
James M. Jeffords, VT
Jeff Bingaman, NM
John F. Kerry, MA
Robert G. Torricelli, NJ
Blanche L. Lincoln, AR
Charles E. Grassley, IA
Orrin G. Hatch, UT
Frank H. Murkowski, AK
Don Nickles, OK
Phil Gramm, TX
Trent Lott, MS
Fred Thompson, TN
Olympia J. Snowe, ME
Jon Kyl, AZ
Craig Thomas, WY
Publisher of Charisma Magazine
President, Strang Communications Co.
"Not Yours To Give"by Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennesee____________________________________________________________
Originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," by Edward Sylvester Ellis.
____________________________________________________________
One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:
"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him. "Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the emblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."
:
Money taken at gunpoint from the very person who exerted effort to make it is the same thing as slavery...
Churches that accept this money exemplify the same evil as the organizations that take it...
Only money given volutarily by individuals is morally acceptable...
Jesus would be proud...
More Pork! Local charities that are unable to draw support from the community they operate in have publicly demonstrated they are unworthy of funding. I have worked with Christian food programs in the inner city for over a decade and discovered the programs that work get the money and the ones that don’t go by the wayside. The government should take a hands-off approach to funding of this type.
There are over 300,000 tax free organizations out there and like it or not we are not slowing this monster down...President Bush couldn't, nor could Ronald Reagan today.
Where non-faith based groups are already given funds to handle everything from abortions, to abuse counciling to Aids care, to senior care...leaving out the churches leaves the godless in charge, frankly, so you can have NAMBLA teaching your kids, or you can let the ones who have a real, solid moral foundation being given equal rights in the town square. Davy Crockett couldn't stop NOW. We must give Janet Parshall a microphone, too. We've already let the Rats threaten us into silence since the 60s. Hillary's deciding what our communities will do for the children.
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