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Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Faithless

The Moose applauds the brave confessional of a Bushie who has seen the light.

The Moose has continually pointed out that when it comes down to a choice between comforting the poor or lending a helping hand to the donor class, the comfortable always triumph. That has even been the case with W.'s own "faith based" program. If the Administration has a deep and abiding faith, it is theologically committed to redistributing wealth upward. It is the Bushies equivalent of the rapture.

Don't just take the Moose's word for it, a poignant testimonial has been written on beliefnet.com by David Kuo, the former White House Deputy Director of the faith based program. Kuo writes,

"Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact. In June 2001, the promised tax incentives for charitable giving were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy."

Of course, it is not breaking news that the Godly Bushies only paid lip-service to assisting the poor. The Washington Post reminds us,

"In August 2001, John J. DiIulio Jr., then-director of the faith-based office, became the first top Bush adviser to quit, after seven months on the job. In an interview with Esquire magazine a year later, DiIulio said the Bush White House was obsessed with the politics of the faith-based initiative but dismissive of the policy itself, and he slammed White House advisers as "Mayberry Machiavellis."
Kuo's piece is particularly appealing because he doesn't spare either party for their indifference to the faith based effort. Kuo writes,

"The moment the president announced the faith-based effort, Democratic opposition was frenzied. Hackneyed church-state scare rhetoric made the rounds; this was "radical" and "dangerous" and merely an "attempt to fund Bob Jones University." One Democratic African-American congressman came to the White House to back the president but was threatened by influential liberal groups that they would withhold funding if he didn't denounce the President. The next day he was forced to retract his statement. All of this came despite the fact that former Vice President Al Gore had endorsed virtually identical faith-based measures during the 2000 campaign."

The Moose shares Kuo's frustration with the knee-jerk liberal opposition to the program. While the GOP puts the wealthy first, the left often puts a theological dedication to "church-state separation" before helping the poor in innovative ways.

The Moose has a suggestion - Democrats should advocate eliminating the repeal of the estate tax and use some of the money to fund the faith-based program.

Then, the Lord can truly be on our side!
-- Posted at 8:52 AM | Link to this post | Email this post