[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 980-981]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        HISTORIC DAY FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, today was an historic day for the United 
States because our President, George W. Bush, announced a new office 
for faith-based initiatives.
  Many of us have worked for many years, as has President Bush and the 
State of Texas, in many of these initiatives and are very excited about 
what the President has done. There have been many people toiling away 
in our inner cities, in our rural areas, and other places trying to 
extend a helping hand to the poor, yet often ignored in the public 
arena, while many groups who have been less effective have been able to 
get the funds.
  Nobody is arguing that there are not well-meaning people in multiple 
bureaucracies of the Federal Government and of State and local 
governments. But we also know that many of the most life-changing 
experiences, many of the most effective programs, have actually 
occurred at the neighborhood level, the grassroots level, from people 
who live in those communities, who work in those communities, who are 
deeply invested; they leverage the funds, and yet they are not eligible 
when we have different programs.

                              {time}  1900

  We have had a number of amendments through this House, some of which 
have died in the Senate, some of which were vetoed, and some of which 
are law in the charitable choice provisions.
  President Bush has gone one step farther. Not only has he said that 
he favors these charitable choice provisions in allowing, under rigid 
conditions, nobody can proselytize, nobody can try to push their 
religious faiths on somebody else, but for Christians who want to do 
service for others, to try to extend those dollars, whether it be in 
housing, in juvenile justice, whether it be in certain after-school 
programs, whether it be helping the homeless, whether it be helping 
people with AIDS, that Christian and Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist and 
Jewish organizations can now apply for those grants.

[[Page 981]]

  In addition to what he has done at the legislative proposal level, he 
has asked the executive branch agencies to analyze their programs 
internally to see where they have reached out, to see what has worked 
and what has not worked and where they might expand that.
  He also has a package for a charitable tax credit for nonitemizers, 
for example, something that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) 
pushed here for years, that I have had legislation as well, to try to 
expand the charitable credit that was in the bill of the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and Jim Talent that we have argued, that former 
Senator Dan Coats advocated in the Senate and worked with, because a 
tax credit that would put additional dollars into the charitable 
organizations that are having such an impact at the local level would 
be a major breakthrough.
  What we have seen out of our new President is not just a talk that 
related to the campaign to try to win but a comprehensive blueprint of 
how to actually accomplish this in office. That is not something that 
gains necessarily a lot of votes. Not a lot of lobbyists come to our 
office saying, hey, we will financially support you if you just back 
this faith-based initiative thing.
  It comes with a lot of controversy because a lot of people, rightly 
to some degree, fear that this could be overextended, and they do not 
understand the full nature of this and the court limitations on it, and 
they are worried about religious liberty. But President Bush has stood 
up and said, this is too important, there are too many kids and 
families hurting in this country to continue to ignore the most 
effective way to reach many of these children who need our help.
  I cannot say enough in praise of this initiative. I am excited about 
the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. I am looking forward to the 
legislation that we will be bringing to the floor to work with this and 
to work with this office. This is a great morning in America today for 
many people who really need the help not only of the government but of 
their neighbors and the communities and the churches and others who can 
do so much to give them a chance in this wonderful free country.

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