Your tax dollars:
When President Bush first came out with his faith-based initiative I didn’t give it much thought, but naively had a generally positive view of it—what an idiot I was. I hadn’t at that point seen the many hands of the left-wing churches, like the Virginia Council of Churches, in the taxpayers’ pockets. Groups like VCC could not exist without taxpayers’ money—without your money. They get money from all sorts of federal and state grants to administer a wide variety of social welfare programs, including refugee resettlement. And, to top it off they are not accountable. Last I checked VCC didn’t even have to file a Form 990 with the IRS to show where the money went. Why? Because they are a “church” and exempt from filing a tax return.
Here is how one news report on Obama’s intiative begins:
ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he wants to expand White House efforts to steer social service dollars to religious groups, risking protests in his own party with his latest aggressive reach for voters who usually vote Republican.
Obama contended he is merely stating long-held positions — surprising to some, he said, after a primary campaign in which he was “tagged as being on the left.”
On Tuesday, touring Presbyterian Church-based social services facility, the Democratic senator said he would get religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty efforts if elected.
Obama is a smart dude! He knows this faith-based taxpayer rip-off will help his leftwing causes. I challenge readers to send me the name of one conservative, “right wing” Republican, faith-based organization getting federal grants! If such an animal existed it wouldn’t be ‘conservative’ and ‘right-wing’ as I define those words. He may reach a bunch of people in the middle, who don’t follow these issues closely but are religious people and are as naive as I was, and who think this is a nice thing to do.
For Obama this is just an expansion of his Chicago Community Organizing where taxpayer money helped “organize” leftist (some faith-based too) causes. See my post in March entitled, “Obama and the taxpayer money trail.”
I wonder how taxpayers will feel when their hard-earned money flows to every religious group under the sun to do all sorts of “charitable” work. And, I can’t believe I am saying this—I support the views of the Separation of Church and State people on this one. What happened to good old-fashioned real (private )charity?
Here is a more detailed article about Obama’s plan.