Texas governor’s policies reflect personal approach to philanthropy
When George W. Bush was asked to serve as honorary chairman of Hearts & Hammers, a Dallas charity that renovates homes for the poor, he was happy to oblige.
But he had one condition: drop the honorary part. If he was to be involved at all, he told the group’s founder, he wanted to play an active role in helping the charity spread its good works.
Now Mr. Bush says he wants to bring that same attitude to the White House. The Texas governor says that as president he would take a “muscular approach” to encouraging Americans to give and volunteer.
“We could be on the verge of one of the great philanthropic periods in America, where enormous wealth has been generated,” he said in an interview. “The next president needs to encourage that wealth to spread. People need to give back.”
If Mr. Bush leads the Republicans to victory in the November elections, he says he plans to expand his controversial efforts in Texas to encourage religious-oriented groups to play a big role in the provision of social services. And he hopes to build on his personal experiences with charities, both as a volunteer and as a donor who has given nearly half a million dollars to churches, colleges, cultural organizations, antipoverty groups, and other charitable causes from 1991 to 1998, according to tax records he released to The Chronicle.
Already, Mr. Bush has guaranteed that philanthropy will be on the presidential campaign agenda this year by promoting one of the most wide-ranging proposals to affect charities ever to be offered by a White House contender. He is touting an $8-billion plan that would provide new tax breaks and other incentives to encourage giving by all Americans and by corporations, and he has pledged to appoint a top-level White House official to serve as an advocate for faith-based charities.
His ideas hearten many non-profit leaders -- especially leaders at religious groups. But his proposals have attracted criticism from others who say that Mr. Bush’s actions in Texas make a poor national model because they haven’t helped all that many charities do a better job of serving the poor -- or are largely a politically motivated excuse for cutting back on government-provided social services.
In coming months, Americans will take a closer look at the candidacies of Mr. Bush and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore. Much of Mr. Gore’s approach to charity issues -- including his advocacy of environmental causes and his support of religious-oriented groups -- is on the public record because of his tenure as a member of the House and Senate, and as vice president in two terms of the Clinton administration (The Chronicle, August 12, 1999).
But few people outside of Texas have scrutinized how Mr. Bush, 53, has handled philanthropy. Mr. Bush invites voters not only to examine his record as governor for the past five years, but also to look at the charitable gifts that he and his wife, Laura Welch Bush, have made. Although he says that “it’s very important to talk about gifts and philanthropy in a humble way,” he adds that the electorate has a right to compare his public actions and policies with his private deeds.
“I do believe it’s important for people in high-profile positions to set a tone and to lead,” he said. But, he added, “I don’t want to hold myself out as the most generous of all citizens; Laura and I give the amount to which we feel comfortable.’'
In the records that Mr. Bush released for his giving from 1991 to 1998, the multimillionaire’s contributions ranged from about 2 percent of his family’s income to slightly under 16 percent. He gave the most in 1998 -- the year he sold his ownership share in the Texas Rangers baseball team for more than $14-million and donated nearly $335,000 to charity.
Mr. Bush says his 1999 giving will be made public when he releases his tax returns later this month; Mr. Gore is expected to do the same -- and that could lead to public comparisons of the charitable giving of both candidates.
Mr. Bush vowed that he will not turn the topic of charitable contributions into a campaign issue. Vice President Gore drew fire two years ago when his tax returns showed that he and his wife gave just $353 to charity in 1997, less than 1 percent of their income.
“I would never use that against him politically,” Governor Bush says. “I would not make the case, ‘Vote for me, I’ve been more generous.’ Each person has to make up their own mind about its importance,” he says.
While Mr. Bush said he was happy to release the names of the charities he supported and the amount he gave, he says he is not critical of politicians who prefer not to. “I can understand why some people are private in their gifts.”
The Bushes directed one of the biggest chunks of their giving to churches, but they also support United Ways, colleges and universities, literacy groups, children’s charities, battered-women’s shelters, and many other organizations.
Mr. Bush’s support for a variety of causes seems to reflect a genuinely strong interest in non-profit organizations, some observers say.
“Charities really are important to him, politically and personally, and you can only take him on his word for that on a certain level,” says Bill Minutaglio, a journalist from Austin who is a writer for The Dallas Morning News and author of First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty.
Mr. Minutaglio notes that some of the governor’s critics have claimed that Mr. Bush’s promotion of faith-based groups mainly is an effort to reach out to the religious right in order to get its members to back his election to the White House.
Mr. Minutaglio says he does not know if there’s any truth to that allegation. But, he says, “I have come to believe that the governor’s interest in charities, and really the faith-based topic, predated his very specific interest in the presidency and is probably an honest reflection of him seeking a true public policy. If he wins, it will have a definite bearing on his actions as president.”
Mr. Bush’s strong interest in reaching out to faith-based groups helped influence his reaction to the most serious skirmish over charity issues thus far in the campaign season.
During the primaries, Governor Bush lashed out at his chief opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, for favoring the repeal of a tax law that allows donors of stock, art, and other appreciated items to claim a charitable deduction for the full current value -- while at the same time avoiding capital-gains taxes.
Mr. McCain had sought to show that the tax benefit primarily helps wealthy people who donate “fancy paintings” while “working families pay higher taxes to pick up the bill,” but Governor Bush was quick to point out that church fund raising could also be harmed if the law was changed. For example, a Bush campaign brochure distributed during the primary campaign read: “John McCain will increase taxes on some charitable gifts to churches, colleges, and charities.” Some of Mr. Bush’s telephone appeals in South Carolina sounded a similar message.
“I hit him hard on that,” Governor Bush said in the interview. He said repealing the tax break would be “a bad mistake because it would discourage giving.” He added: “The most efficient dollar spent to help somebody in need is that which goes to charitable institutions, in most cases.”
In his conversation with The Chronicle, Governor Bush made clear that his efforts to bolster non-profit groups -- especially faith-based organizations -- are directly tied to his view that government has real limits when it provides welfare and other assistance to needy people. “What government cannot do is get people to love one another,” he says. “You can’t pass a law that does that. That comes from a higher authority. Nor can government put hope in people’s hearts.”
Overreliance on government to deal with social problems, Mr. Bush says, has “had a corrosive impact on the great strength of this country, which is individuals helping individuals.”
Governor Bush set forth his ideas for charities, and signaled their importance to him, in his first major policy speech of the campaign, which he made in July at a gathering at an Indianapolis church.
“In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based organizations, charities, and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives,” he said in Indianapolis.
The most sweeping of the proposals he announced in that speech would benefit all kinds of charities by allowing people who do not itemize deductions on their federal income-tax returns to write off charitable gifts. He promoted the idea before Congress, and then the Clinton administration, officially embraced similar -- but more-limited -- versions that are now being considered by lawmakers. “We will encourage an outpouring of giving,” Mr. Bush said in the Indianapolis speech, “creating fertile ground for the growth of charities.”
He said that he would also encourage states to offer charity tax credits to individuals and companies for gifts to antipoverty groups, and would allow states to use federal welfare money to offset the costs of gifts.
Most of Mr. Bush’s other charity proposals are aimed at giving a lift to religious groups that provide social services. His goal: to change federal laws and regulations to explicitly allow religious and other non-profit organizations to compete for money to provide services in every federal, state, and local social program without impairing the groups’ religious character. In 1996, Congress tucked such a provision in the welfare-overhaul law, but Mr. Bush says that legislation did not go far enough.
Nobody knows for certain exactly what led Governor Bush to start crusading in behalf of faith-based groups. When Mr. Bush ran for governor, he stressed his desire to overhaul the welfare system. During his first year in office, Mr. Bush was concerned when a faith-based drug-treatment program had a run-in with state regulators. He created a Governor’s Advisory Task Force to identify the problems that religious charities were having in working with the state and to recommend ways that Texas could change its laws to create an environment in which those groups could thrive.
The committee was not just for show: Because the powers of the Texas governor are limited by the state’s constitution, the chief executive has to use the office as a bully pulpit. The governor can try to get things done by appointing key agency officials as well as special committees on issues, and by cajoling the Legislature, which meets only once every two years, to pass bills.
Mr. Bush’s panel on faith-based issues reported back to him at the end of 1996, shortly after Congress had changed the federal welfare law to specifically invite churches and other religious groups to seek government money, and a key role in providing social services, through a provision called charitable choice. The committee urged a variety of changes in Texas law, and Governor Bush ordered state welfare agencies to file written reports detailing what steps they would take in light of the new federal law.
In 1997 and 1999, the Texas Legislature approved measures, which Governor Bush signed, that took the charitable-choice concept several steps beyond the federal law, applying it to other programs and easing some of the administrative requirements for faith-based organizations -- actions that Mr. Bush says he would like to take as president.
Numerous people have helped to shape Mr. Bush’s beliefs in faith-based groups. Among the most influential: Marvin Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor and a senior fellow of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, who wrote a book influential among national Republicans titled The Tragedy of American Compassion.
“What I can do and have done occasionally is bring certain things to his attention,” says Mr. Olasky. “The task force and then the governor took some of these ideas and suggestions I’ve had and made them concrete. He is superb at getting to the heart of the matter, asking what do you do about it?”
Many observers think the governor’s interest in faith-based programs stems from his evangelical Christian faith. But some Texas critics see the interest in faith-based groups as little more than a politically calculated move.
The governor’s compassionate conservatism is a “biblical and ideological justification for further dismantling what remains of the social-welfare safety net,” charge Molly Ivins, syndicated columnist from Fort Worth, and Lou Dubose, editor of The Texas Observer, in their book, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush.
The authors say that 30 years ago, the state handed out many welfare programs subsidized by government to “faith-based outfits” and wound up providing citizens with incompetent services. “One of the weirdest things about Olasky’s ideas is that we have already tried them here in the National Laboratory for Bad Government,” write the authors, “but Governor Bush, who is not interested in policy, doesn’t remember it. Another case of bad ideas that never die.”
What’s more, Ms. Ivins and Mr. Dubose think that the governor’s motivation stems from his political need to reach out to religious conservatives. Mr. Bush’s “skillful handling of the Christian right -- giving them just enough to keep them in line -- is probably his most impressive political credential,” they write.
Some public-policy analysts in Texas agree with Mr. Bush that state laws should be flexible enough to allow faith-based groups to participate in welfare and other programs, as long as clients are protected against religious proselytizing and bad service.
But Patrick Bresette, associate director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a think tank in Austin, says that many churches and religious organizations don’t have the ability to do more than they do now, even with an infusion of new money, while still other groups have been deeply involved in working with government for years without needing passage of new legislation.
Moreover, Mr. Bresette says that the state hasn’t made available to faith-based groups vast sums of money. “Texas really doesn’t spend much money on poor people and on social services and has really relied dramatically on federal funding or mandates from the federal government,” he says. “The capacity and the infrastructure of the state is relatively stripped down.”
However, Elizabeth Darling Seale, vice chair of the Texas Board of Human Services, says that the new state laws have resulted in religious organizations’ beginning to participate in a variety of ways -- “like wildfire, as quickly as we can move in a state this vast with a Legislature that meets only every other year.”
Ms. Seale, who was appointed by the governor to the welfare board and also to his special advisory committee on charities, says that Mr. Bush “puts a lot of confidence in those of us who are in these positions to champion this cause. Government does many things well. But there is a lot of room at the table for non-profits.”
Baptist Child and Family Services, in San Antonio, says it has found that to be true. Kevin Dinnin, the Baptist organization’s chief executive, says the changes pushed by Mr. Bush have enabled the organization to finance its Second Chance Teen Parent Program for unmarried mothers on welfare.
“Governor Bush has challenged us to think about ways to work with the government, together,” he says. “The message is: Let’s give faith-based organizations the opportunity to provide certain services and not cross them off the list.”
John C. Goodman, director of the National Center for Policy Analysis, in Dallas, says a President George W. Bush could be counted on to complete the overhaul of the country’s welfare services.
“We went half the distance during the Clinton administration by essentially getting rid of a national welfare system and allowing states the flexibility to create work programs and other things,” says Mr. Goodman. “The second part of this initiative is empowering private-sector charities to pick up a lot of the load that is going to remain as the government recedes.”