[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 30, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ELIMINATING FEDERAL BARRIERS

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I rise to enthusiastically applaud 
George W. Bush's community and faith-based initiative which he 
announced yesterday and is emphasizing and talking about this week. It 
is a very exciting prospect that we have a President who recognizes the 
vast untapped potential of the charitable and faith-based sector and 
who wants to rally what he calls the ``armies of compassion'' to solve 
the deeper social problems and the deeper social challenges we face in 
this Nation.
  The government can do many things. Some of those things it does well, 
but there are many things government cannot do. It cannot put hope in 
our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives. This is done by 
churches, synagogues, mosques, and charities that warm the cold of 
life. It is done by the faith-based sector in our society.
  I am pleased the President has established the Office of Faith-Based 
and Community Initiatives. By creating this office, we now will have a 
clearinghouse in the executive branch to point up where we have 
legislative and administrative barriers that have been erected to make 
it more difficult for people to encourage and support these faith-based 
initiatives. It will identify such problems in Federal rules, 
practices, and regulatory and statutory barriers in order that we might 
find relief and coordinate new Federal initiatives to empower and 
partner with faith-based and community problem solvers.
  As he rolled out this plan--some of it, I am sure, is going to be 
controversial, and that is where the media would like to focus--much of 
what the President has rolled out makes common sense if we go beyond 
welfare reform, passed a few years ago and signed by President Clinton. 
Welfare reform has had a dramatic impact. We have seen the welfare 
roles decline by half across the Nation. All of us involved in the 
effort understood that was but the first step, and if we were 
ultimately to get to the deeper problems in a welfare culture, if we 
were going to deal with the problems of drug dependency, if we were 
going to deal with the high rate of recidivism in our prisons that we 
had to embrace, we had to involve the faith-based sector.
  The President has suggested we should expand private giving, we 
should grant a charitable deduction for nonitemizers. The Federal 
charitable deduction, under the President's plan, will be expanded to 
80 million taxpayers. Seventy percent of all filers do not itemize, and 
thus currently cannot claim this benefit. This initiative will spark 
billions of dollars in new donations to charitable organizations. He 
has suggested that we should promote corporate in-kind donations. The 
administration seeks to limit the liability of corporations that in 
good faith donate equipment, facilities, vehicles, or aircraft to 
charitable organizations, thus enhancing the ability of these 
organizations to serve neighborhoods and families. That, I say to my 
colleagues, is common sense. It should not be controversial. He 
suggested that we permit charitable contributions from IRAs without 
penalty. Under current law, withdrawals from IRAs are subject to income 
tax. This creates a disincentive for retirees to contribute some or all 
of their IRA funds to charity.

  President Bush supports legislation that would permit individuals, 
over the age of 59, to contribute IRA funds to charities without having 
to pay income tax on their gifts. He promotes a charitable State tax 
credit. He supports raising the cap on corporate charitable deductions 
and creating a compassion capital fund.
  All of these are a simple means in which we can use the Tax Code to 
encourage donations to the faith-based and charitable sector and 
unleash this vast source of energy to help solve these very deep-rooted 
problems that we have in our society.
  Among the new approaches, he suggests action that would help the 
children of prisoners, improving inmate rehabilitation, providing 
second chance maternity group homes, and more afterschool 
opportunities.
  I want to tell one such story from the State of Arkansas that I 
believe the President's initiatives will assist. We had a wonderful 
organization started in Little Rock, AR, called PARK. It stands for 
Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids. It was established by someone whose 
name will be familiar to football fans across this country. It was 
established by Keith Jackson. Keith was raised in a single parent 
household in a low-income neighborhood of Little Rock. He held 
steadfast to his course of finishing high school, playing football, and 
ultimately graduating from college. Unfortunately for us, he played 
football for the University of Oklahoma. But he went on to the NFL 
where he had a stellar career. He returned to Little Rock with this 
burden to help underprivileged children in Little Rock.
  This is what he said in 1989. He said, while watching an evening 
newscast, he was struck by the number of stories involving teenagers 
and violent crime. He said: It seemed like every story was about a kid 
getting shot or robbing a liquor store or being in a gang fight. It 
really hit me for the first time that somebody had to do something to 
stop this. What we are doing now isn't working.
  He said the Government programs, as many and as well motivated as 
they were, were not doing the job. He established PARK. It is a 
wonderful program. It is an afterschool program. From September through 
May, the program operates 4 days a week. Kids ride schoolbuses to PARK. 
When they arrive, they eat a nutritious snack. They participate in the 
required academic program which requires homework, tutoring, reading or 
research in the library, working in the computer lab that is equipped 
with software designed to enhance skills in reading, math, and language 
arts.
  Volunteer tutors and mentors come in. After they spend the hour doing 
the academics, they then get to enjoy the recreation. They have a 
skating rink, a weight room, basketball courts, racquetball courts, and 
an arcade. Some kids may go so they can be involved in the recreation, 
but they first have to do the academic work. They have a summer 
program. They have a community service program. They emphasize parental 
involvement.
  When school is over, the buses take the kids to PARK, where they 
enjoy an extra hour of academic emphasis. Then they have the 
recreation. They have a nutritious snack. They have parental 
involvement. They have mentors and tutors. And they have a college prep 
program. All of this is done without one red cent of Government money. 
It is all from donations. It is all from foundations; not any 
Government assistance.
  Why shouldn't we make it easier for people who believe in programs 
such as PARK to be able to give and contribute and have a tax incentive 
to do that? I simply applaud President Bush for seeing this need and 
for stepping forward and being willing to take some of the barbed 
attacks he has faced, and will continue to face, for this initiative 
because it is sorely needed.
  I want to tell one more example. Here in Washington, DC, a group of 
Hill staffers, a few years ago, saw the need of children in 
disadvantaged homes in the District of Columbia, where many of them did 
not have the same educational opportunities as children from more 
affluent homes. They went out and they started a school called 
Cornerstone. They started it on a shoestring. They had no great 
resources. They had no great endowment. They had no great foundation. 
All they had was a vision and a dream. They are Hill staffers. They 
have started a school that is now serving scores of young people here 
in the District of Columbia. While we may argue about vouchers, we 
surely should not argue about making it easier for people to support 
faith-based initiatives such as Cornerstone.

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