A recent Washington Post article reports that several faith leaders are sensing a new tone from President Barack Obama’s office on faith-based initiatives. According to Stanley Carlson-Thies, who has worked closely with the office under both Presidents Bush and Obama, rather than creating a fair playing field for the good works of faith-based groups, the attitude now is: “We’re the government, doing wonderful things, YOU can come join US.” Attitudes and expectations about government are important. They shape how citizens respond to poverty and injustice. That’s why we’d propose a …
In his recent Bradley Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, civil society expert Bill Schambra charged conservatives who say “that’s a job for civil society” to “be able to name and demonstrate immediate acquaintance with at least a dozen actual examples of civil society doing the job, in the form of grassroots groups personally visited and funded.” That’s a good New Year’s Resolution, and one that should also lead to greater alliance between conservatives and faith-based grassroots leaders and community healers who are putting conservative principles of human dignity and …
You should talk about money before jumping into it, a story in The New York Times says. You can spice it up by doing more housework, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. And this just in: Your strong commitment to it is a sign you’re trying to practice what you regularly hear preached. “It,” of course, is marriage. Marriage and its connection to religious involvement will be one of the themes highlighted Thursday during “Religious Practice and the Family,” a conference sponsored by The Heritage Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Building and …
President Barack Obama’s FY 2010 budget proposal to cut the tax deductions that wealthy Americans can claim for their charitable donations has been roundly criticized, including by us here and by Harvard University economic professor Martin Feldstein here. But Obama does have his leftist defenders, including New York City Coalition Against Hunger executive director Joel Berg who writes: Combined with other progressive Obama tax proposals, that change would not only start to redress the inequality gap that has engulfed America in recent decades but would also help to pay for …
Yesterday the Senate passed the Serve America Act which broadly expanded government “service” programs like AmeriCorps, by over 300%. As we explained last week when the House voted, the legislation dramatically increases federal involvement in the realm of volunteerism, continuing the trend toward an America in which “public service” only means working for the government. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) hammered this point home from the Senate floor: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TPi0gR-P8w[/youtube]
