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CARE Act back in the Senate
A new version of the Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act, part of President Bush's faith-based initiative, will make it to the U.S. Senate floor for a vote as early as next week, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) tells The Washington Times.

Last year, the Democrat-controlled Senate did not vote on the bill as some members demanded that it also force faith-based groups receiving government funds to hire workers without considering their religion.

This year's bill isn't much different from the one Santorum and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) introduced last year. It doesn't expand charitable choice (that is, it doesn't allow more faith-based social service organizations to receive government funds). But it does offer several tax code changes that both Republicans and Democrats support. Among them, it proposes:

• Letting taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions to deduct a portion of their charitable giving
  
  
• Tax incentives for farmers and restaurants to donate extra food to the hungry, and similar incentives for donors of books and technology;
  
  
• Government-matched savings accounts for low-income Americans who want to purchase a home, further their education, or start a small business; and
  
  
• Deducting volunteers' mileage from their gross income.

The bill also offers $150 million each year for technical assistance to small community and faith-based charities, and allows a faith-based organization to receive funds even if it displays religious icons, has a religious name, uses religious language in its charter documents, or has religious qualifications for its governing board.

Even so, a congressional aide says the bill may not be strong enough for House Republicans, who passed a much broader faith-based initiative bill last year. "I think there'll be a real resistance to a piecemeal approach," the House Republican aide told the Times. "A lot of the members in the House will insist that we deal with all of the issues regarding equal treatment, not just the easy ones."

More articles on the faith-based initiative:

• Problems remain with Bush's plan | Even when faith-based treatment programs for drug and alcohol abuse are effective, there are problems with allowing the government to pay for treatment of people who choose to use them (Editorial, Palladium-Item, Richmond, Ind.)
  
  
• Vouchers for addicts | It's an experiment worth trying, especially if it reaches hearts and reforms lives (Editorial, The Christian Science Monitor)

School vouchers are back, too
There's some confusion about how hard President Bush will push for a $756 million school choice program for Washington, D.C. Bush's budget proposal includes a pilot program that would give Washington families vouchers to send their students to private schools, The Washington Post reported yesterday.

Today, the story is less clear. "The Bush administration will provide funding for private school vouchers in the District only if city officials agree to the program, U.S. Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige said yesterday," the Post reports. "But later in the day, an Education Department spokesman held open the possibility that a nonprofit organization in the District could serve as a conduit for the voucher program if city officials refused to participate."

"We're going to be suggesting they do this," Paige told the Post. "We're going to work hard to get them to agree to this."

But a spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams says it won't happen. "The mayor is not going to commit the District to any voucher initiative," he said. "He is opposed to vouchers. The council is opposed to vouchers. Vouchers are not on the table."

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47