Agency executive praises Bush for support of bill
3/14/2002 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of Jim Winkler is available at http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html online. By United Methodist News Service The top staff executive of the United Methodist Church's social action agency is offering praise and a few suggestions for President Bush regarding a Senate bill targeting poverty.
"I am writing to commend you for your support of the Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment Act and to recommend some improvements," wrote Jim Winkler, head of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, on March 13.
The CARE bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., is aimed at fighting poverty and would enable faith-based organizations to receive federal dollars for providing social services. The legislation represents a key step in implementing Bush's faith-based initiatives plan.
The United Methodist Church's highest decision-making body, the General Conference, has defined six criteria that must be met before it supports government funding of church-administered social service programs, according to the Washington-based board. The criteria are spelled out in the denomination's 2000 Book of Resolutions and were detailed in a report to the White House last year from three general agencies of the church.
"As we partner with the government," Winkler wrote, "the United Methodist Church does not object to religious organizations receiving public funds to deliver social services as long as those funds do not go to proselytizing or discriminatory practices. Our denomination urges its churches to form separate 501(c) 3 organizations to receive government funds."
The board supports the bill's expansion of individual development accounts, he wrote. The accounts represent collaborations of corporations, nonprofit groups and individuals that help people save money and receive matching funds to buy a home, start a business or pay for higher education. "This innovative way of reducing poverty will help people gain self-sufficiency, better jobs and better housing."
Winkler expressed support for the bill's provision to ease the process for religious organizations and community groups obtaining tax-exempt status and urged that the legislation include specific language prohibiting discrimination of any kind when providing government services.
"We still have reservations with the CARE legislation," he wrote. "By not directly prohibiting discrimination when religious organizations provide government services, this bill allows religious organizations to sidestep civil rights law when hiring people to fill federally funded social services programs. Existing case law is not a sufficient safeguard against discrimination by religious groups."
The bill contains provisions for establishing accounts by low-income wage earners that would receive matching funds, and tax incentives for non-itemizers to give to charities. The board supports both, but Winkler added that the tax breaks could do more harm than good for families living in poverty "if these tax breaks are paid for with cuts in funding from federally funded programs to assist the poor. This would be completely unacceptable."
"The CARE Act is a step in the right direction," Winkler wrote. "However, neither the church nor the government can become complacent in the struggle against poverty or lose its vigilance in regard to the proper separation of church and state."
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