He has given up such hopes. "Half a loaf is better than going hungry," he said earlier this week. "It has been such a long time since the House passed our version of the faith-based initiative. Underserved communities shouldn't have to wait any longer."
This means that the Charitable Choice Act of 2001 is dead. The House bill's main point — indeed, the main point of Bush's faith-based initiative — was allowing churches and religious organizations to compete for government social service grants. The Senate bill currently contains only the most uncontroversial measures — mainly tax incentives for giving to charitable organizations. The Democrat-led Senate seems to be sitting on it simply to spite President Bush. As Dan Gerstein, spokesman for bill cosponsor Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), told the Associated Press, "Our bill does not change the status quo one bit."
But the bill still may become controversial. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), plans to introduce amendments that would, among other things, prohibit a government-funded group from "discriminating" against those potential employees who wouldn't want to adhere to the organization's statement of faith. Lieberman and his cosponsor, Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), "say that they will not bring the bill to the Senate floor unless they ...
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