By Marvin Olasky 

April 1996 – Last year’s congressional welfare debate centered on the role of dollars in fighting poverty.

This year’s should focus on the role of God.

The historical and contemporary research I’ve done shows that some people are poor through no fault of their own, but others are impoverished because of spiritual problems that manifest themselves in addiction, alcoholism, family abandonment, promiscuity, laziness or crime.

Those troubled poor have holes in their souls that only God can fill.

It’s not that the rich have fewer spiritual holes than the poor, but rather that the former are better able to plug those holes with putty, temporarily.

Rich alcoholics eventually become poor, but for a long time their fall is hidden, while the problems of a homeless man with a bottle of Mad Dog are evident to all.

Recognition of spiritual need should not lead the better off to scorn the troubled poor, but rather to offer effective compassion that is challenging, personal and spiritual –  “CPS” for short.

I have seen in inner cities across the country that just as CPR can revive a dying body, so CPS can help to revive a soul sunk into fatalistic defeatism.

Instead of embracing CPS, Congress from 1965 through 1994 passed bills that embodied entitlement, bureaucracy and an attempt to banish God.

But that tide ebbed last year, and leaders from Newt Gingrich on down expressed interest in CPS, including the role of churches, synagogues and other religious organizations in fighting poverty.

Two different paths to bring God back into the equation emerged, but they received little publicity.

Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) and others proposed that Washington distribute grants to religious as well as to secular organizations; church groups would accept federal dollars for anti-poverty work as other providers do, with effectiveness in getting people off drugs or out of poverty the relevant question.

But there was a catch: Government grants could not be “expended for sectarian worship, instruction or proselytization.”

Therein lies the rub.

That gag rule forbidding the most serious types of religious expression in government funded projects was politically necessary, because without it the American Civil Liberties Union and its political allies would not only have opposed the measure, as they did, but also gone thermonuclear.

Shrewd politics, however, makes for ineffective anti-poverty work.

The proposal, which became part of the Republican welfare-reform bill now vetoed by President Clinton, missed an important point.

Christian efforts take a bite out of poverty because of Christ.

Other serious religious groups also attribute their effectiveness not to niceness but to spiritual transformation brought about by worship, teaching and theological advocacy – the very functions that the proposal would disallow.

Furthermore, the proposal did not affect all religious groups equally.

Churches that have become political or social clubs could readily accept government money because they already have lost their salt and become government look-alikes.

But Christian, Jewish and Islamic groups that have remained theologically tough would either turn down the money and the accompanying gag rule, or go soft also – unless they cheated by sliding money from one category to another.

Ashcroft deserves credit for shining a spot light on current discrimination in funding.

But his proposal, if enacted, would have led religious groups into temptation.

There is a better way, and Ashcroft himself – along with Sens. Dan Coats (R-IN) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) – has proposed it for congressional action in 1996: tax credits that would allow individuals to send more money directly to any poverty-fighting organization, religious or secular.

Currently, individual taxpayers can itemize the contributions they make and deduct the sum from their tax payments, generally at a marginal rate of 15%, 28% or 31%.

That is good but not good enough, if the goal is to reinvigorate more Americans’ bodies and souls.

Under a 100% tax-credit proposal introduced by Coats, a single taxpayer could send $500, or a couple $1,000, to a local poverty fighting group and take that amount right off tax payments, sending $500 or $1,000 less to Washington.

The goal of such an approach is to remove power from Washington while promoting local charities and supporting religious liberty. Individuals would fund groups with which they were in theological agreement; religious people would not be forced to fund programs embodying some other faith.

Many different religious and secular groups could compete to create effective programs without the government giving preference to any.

Now that it’s back to the drawing board on welfare reform, Congress should move swiftly to adopt a tax-credit proposal.

The concept promotes challenging, personal and spiritual help while doing away with the problem of centralized government bureaucrats deciding among various religious claimants.

The better-off would have the joy of providing effective help, and those in spiritual as well as material need would receive new life.  

* Marvin Olasky is a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the author of The Tragedy of American Compassion. He recently co-founded the Center for Effective Compassion.