Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . Jim Towey . May 2, 2003

Read more of Bob Abernethy's March 17, 2003 interview with Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives:

Q: What is the underlying idea of the faith-based initiative?

Photo of Jim Towey

A: I think President Bush wanted to unleash armies of compassion in our country, to address our homeless and the fact that they need stable housing, and our addicts need treatment, recovery. Elders need to be visited and cared for -- recognizing that government often is incapable of addressing the full human needs of people. In other words, they need to have a relationship, have someone care for them. [The president] wanted to utilize faith-based organizations and grassroots groups because they do have these relationships with our poor. The initiative was, as he termed it, a determined attack on need -- not in any way diminishing the important role government plays in addressing the needs of its citizens, but seeking to find the most effective way of doing that.

Q: Has any more federal money gone to faith-based social service organizations in these past two years than before?

A: Sure.

Q: How much?

A: There have been a number of different initiatives, although the initiative wasn't about new money. It was about funding the most effective programs, whether they were faith-based providers or not. The president just launched a $600 million drug treatment initiative. The Compassion Capital Fund has received tens of millions of dollars. And had the Senate moved the Care Act, that had $14 billion of not only tax incentives for more charitable giving, but actual direct spending on social service programs sitting right there. So, I think the President has sought to put more resources into play, but his primary objective wasn't to just talk about new money as much as it was to talk about new ways of serving the poor.

Q: Can you come up with a figure that says, "Compared to two years ago, faith-based organizations have received from the federal government X amount more than they had before"?

A: You can't. And the reason you can't is because the government's never asked organizations to identify themselves as faith-based or not. That's one of the frustrations I've experienced since I've been director of this office. We don't have good data. So, we can't even identify how many faith-based groups get money, or how much they get and how good a job they do. And we can't say that about secular groups, either. I think this is a challenge, too, that we start looking at getting better data, so that we could answer that question and I could say, "Well, in welfare-to-work, for example, we know that 8 to 10 percent of the funds are going to faith-based organizations." But [I know that] because a private [consultant] came in and studied it, not because the government collected the data. It would be nice to answer other federal programs covering $67 billion the same way.

Q: When you say $67 billion, what are you referring to?

A: The amount of federal dollars going to social service grant programs across the whole range of social service needs -- housing, at-risk youth, welfare-to-work, and so forth.

Q: What's the most important achievement, then, in these two years?

A: I think the president has placed into the public square this issue of how we partner with faith-based organizations so that we can most effectively serve the needs of our poor. That's been a huge accomplishment, and that bears President Bush's "brand," for lack of a better term.

I think he's also taken steps to end discrimination against faith-based groups, because when he came into office you had regulations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development that said the workplace where these programs are offered can't have any possible religious influence. Of course, that's very hard to define. And what that led to, I think, was a chilling effect. It drove away any faith-based groups from even seeking federal funds. So, if your name was John's Shelter, you could go after federal money; but if it was St. John's Shelter, you couldn't. I think President Bush has taken dramatic steps to level the playing field so faith-based groups are treated fairly.

Q: So, you know that it's more possible now for faith-based groups to apply for government money, but you don't know how many have applied, and you don't know how much more money they've gotten.

A: That's right. I think President Bush has made clear this isn't about a quota system or earmarking that X percent would go to Christian groups and X percent to Jewish groups. His focus was on the question, do your programs work, or not? His focus isn't, does your organization believe in God, or not? He's tried to keep the attention where it belongs, which is on effective programs.

Q: But it is true, isn't it, that there has been something of a shift -- that smaller groups have been completing more applications?

A: Oh, sure. We've held conferences all over the country, where we have thousands of these small groups come, looking for a little technical assistance, a little help, and learning about how to deal with the federal government; because they know how to run food pantries, and they know how to run job training programs. But they don't know how to deal with the federal government, and so our programs have helped them and invited them into the public square to look at whether they can do business with the federal government. I think the real winners when that happens are the poor.

Q: One thing that has certainly happened is that there's been a vigorous debate about what the role of government should be in this. How would you define that now? Should the government encourage religion? Should it be neutral? Should it maintain a strict separation between church and state? How do you put it?

A: Government should not fund religion or faith. That would be the worst thing that could happen to faith and religion, and it's also contrary to our Constitution. President Bush has made clear from the start that the faith-based initiative is about services; it's not about religion and faith. You don't preach on Uncle Sam's dollar, and you don't discriminate against the people who come in your door seeking a federal service. You can't just say, "We only serve Christians in our soup kitchen," or, "No Jews here." You can't do that. If you take federal money, you accept anyone who walks in the door. That's certainly a benchmark principle of the president.

But he also wants faith-based groups to be able to be who they are and to maintain their identity. That's important to him, as well; because, otherwise, you ask them to become secularized. And then becoming secularized often robs them of the very things that made them effective in the first place.

Q: Let's talk about that dilemma. Can a faith-based organization have a Bible study class? Can it have a worship component? Can it evangelize? What exactly can it do and not do? The effectiveness of the organization and the faith-based component are often very intertwined.

A: The President issued [guidelines] in December on the do's and don'ts which, I think, received good, positive feedback from all circles because it was evenhanded, fair and simple. The fact is you can't preach with Uncle Sam's money. You cannot promote religious belief or practice with federal funds.

A lot of these organizations use their private funds, of course, to do this; and they may have [religious] programs across the hall. But that brings in another fact, which is you can't link the provision of services to someone praying, or not. You can't make going to a prayer service a condition to receive federal aid, if it's [a] directly funded program.

Q: But let's take a drug addiction program. In many of them, the idea that somebody can change, and change as a result of religious conversion, really is a key to their success. If they're successful, it's because of this religious component, and if they've got the religious component, the government can't fund them, constitutionally. Is that the dilemma?

A: A lot of drug treatment programs address the spiritual poverty that confronts the addict. You've got to go to the heart of why they are sticking a needle in their arm in the first place. Why are they devastating their families and friends with this disappointing and destructive life?

There are a number of programs built around [religion] -- for example, a program in Los Angeles is built around the Torah, Judaism. [It is] very successful. You can't directly fund that program, because it is so centered around spiritual messages and principles. Teen Challenge is very successful in treating addiction. They center their [message] around Jesus Christ.

So, President Bush said, "Well, then, let's do this. Let's look at vouchers for people to be able to choose if they want to be able to enter a program like that," because if you receive a voucher and you're choosing to go [into] a program that may have a lot of faith content, that's constitutional.

We also find programs, like at Salvation Army and other places, where there are spiritual dimensions to the treatment regimen, but it's separate; it's not funded with government money, and it's completely voluntary to the people. Some programs can segregate the privately funded religious component from the clinical piece of it, but some don't.

Q: But if your total budget is a hundred dollars, and you get a nice grant for some part of it, then that leaves more [of your own money] for the spiritual part. So, it's not exactly a distinction, is it? You can buy the food, but you can't support the preaching.

A: But I don't think we consider a research grant at the University of Michigan funding their football team. I don't think when we give money to Planned Parenthood and say, "You can do health education with it," that you're funding the abortion services that they provide, which is not permissible under federal law. I think the government frequently gives funds to organizations with restrictions that these funds be used for their intended purpose, and organizations can follow those rules, including faith-based groups.

Q: On the voucher question -- in some places isn't it true that services might be available only from one group, and there's not an alternative?

A: Any voucher system -- to be constitutional under the Supreme Court decision that came out in 2002 in the school voucher case in Cleveland �- has to provide alternatives. You're not going to see voucher programs in communities where there's only one treatment provider in town. One of the essential elements is true voluntary choice on the part of the participant.

Q: What about the issue of hiring only your fellow believers? Has that one been settled?

A: Oh, it's far from settled. Congress has looked at [whether] an organization that's religious [can] hire according to its own religious beliefs, and [it] has answered that question five different ways. There are literally five different statutory ways of handling religious hiring -- from charitable choice which, interestingly enough, President Clinton signed into law. That was the first law that said, "You maintain your civil right to hire according to your religious beliefs, and you can still receive federal money." He signed that in 1996. That has covered $17 billion of federal services this year, and it works.

Q: What's your answer to the hiring question?

A: I think President Bush has been very clear that he thinks faith-based organizations should be able to hire people who support their vision and mission, just like the Sierra Club hires environmentalists and Planned Parenthood [hires] people who aren't pro-life. When they receive federal money, they can't preach with it; they can't promote religion with it. They are providing a service; there are protections in places that the funds coming in and the hiring practices are at the disposal of the effectiveness of services.

People who come and criticize President Bush's handling of charitable choice legislation should go back to when President Clinton first signed it into law. I think President Clinton made a good move. It's been on the books for six years that people can get federal money and hire according to their religious believes, and it works. There aren't horror stories -- where are they? That's six years of TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] funds going out there that way.

Q: Some people say they're concerned about divisions developing among faith-based organizations as they compete with each other for federal dollars. Is that a concern of yours?

A: When we go to conferences, you'll see Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities, Jewish Federation -- a lot of groups who've been receiving federal money, providing federal services for years. When you meet with these people, they're interested in the poor and how to best serve them. I don't think they're turf-conscious or fighting, saying, "Even if our program's not as effective as another one, we want the money." I think they want the best for the poor, and they provide very effective services.

I haven't seen that kind of competition and rivalry, because I think there's a union of interests around the poor and their human dignity and how they can best be served.

Q: Can any faith-based group be eligible for federal funds?

A: Yes, the president has said that organizations are not going to be asked, "Do you believe in God, or not?" but, "Do your programs work?" The focus is on effective programs. I've heard that criticism. Some people will say, "Well, what happens if Satanists get money?" I've never been to a satanic soup kitchen. I don't think the problem in our country is too many soup kitchens. The reality is when organizations that might have an extreme ideological point of view find out that you can't promote your ideology with federal funds, they lose interest. I've been working in social services for a couple decades, and while that's a concern and you've got to keep an eye on it, I'd rather manage that problem than say, "Well, gee, because we aren�t going to define which faiths are acceptable and which aren't, therefore, we're just not going to fund any faith-based groups," because then the poor really lose.

I'd rather have the other problem which, quite frankly, is so remote. It's, in theory, a possible problem; but, in reality, it just doesn't come up. The groups that hate, the groups that divide -- they're not out there serving the general public and trying to lift up the lowly.

Q: What is the relationship between the faith-based initiative and yours, or the president's, or somebody's belief in God?

A: I think that in our country there has always been a strong sense of the great human dignity of every man, woman and child. And I think that underlies President Bush's sense of urgency with this faith-based initiative -- he sees these addicts and the homeless and the kids of prisoners and our at-risk youth and so forth, and he realizes there's a real urgency to trying to find new ways to address these problems. I think he sees the God-given dignity that's engraved in their heart and soul. That, clearly, I would say, is a viewpoint which Muslims, Christians and Jews and others share.

This isn't about promoting any particular faith, and that's the greatness of our country -- we respect all different faiths or people's right to have no faith. We get picketed by the atheists when we have our White House conferences. You know, we invite them inside. They should apply like anybody else and register like anybody else, but they're welcome to come. We've never, ever had a test that said, "If you don't have a certain faith or believe, you can't be part of our conferences."

Q: If concern for the poor and the needs for the poor are so great, why don't you ask Congress for more money for it?

A: Well, the president's asking for more money. He's asking for more incentives for charitable giving, because he doesn't believe that the only effective way to address the needs of the poor is through government programs. When we look at prison programs, for example, they're colossal failures. The recidivism rate's about 70 percent. And so he wants find new ways to fund new organizations. We're looking at Prison Fellowship and their interventions in Texas, realizing this is important. The government's not going to solve that problem. We need to look at faith-based communities and their after-care programs.

Q: Maybe secular organizations can't solve certain problems. Maybe there is a greater need for more faith-based organizations working in the field. So, why not have more money to support them? There seems, to me, a disconnect there.

A: I think you've got to look at the resources side of the equation, and that may include federal dollars being spent on programs. It will also include more charitable giving. When we look at a country with so much abundance and plenty, and we look at the needs of our poor, we recognize that every American can look in the mirror and say, "What can I do to make this a more just, hospitable society?"

The president has pushed billions of dollars and more incentives for charitable giving. He's looked at new funding for programs. The food stamp reauthorization bill he signed was a huge increase in food stamps. There have been increases, but it's a tough job, when you're president and you're facing terrorism and a possible war and other expenses, to balance all that. That's why you work with Congress.

I administered social services at the state level and had billions of dollars in resources every year. What you recognize when you do that work is government is principal and central and key, but if it isn't working in partnership with faith-based and grass-roots groups that can develop a relationship with that poor man or woman who comes in, you're wasting your time. It's always going to be a band-aid. It's never going to lead to lasting effect in the lives of the poor.

Q: So, as far as you're concerned, would it be a good idea if there were more federal money going to the organizations that can do exactly what you just said?

A: I think we've got to look at more resources going in to these programs, sure. I think the preferable route is to develop a relationship between the giver and the recipient of the service.

I worked with Mother Teresa for 12 years and got a lot of satisfaction [giving] money to the Missionaries of Charity -- we'd get to know the poor. There was a relationship developed there. How good does any American feel that some of their paycheck is supporting foster kids, because it is? No taxpayer feels good about that. They don't feel any satisfaction that some of their money's going to the elderly and the disabled.

So, this isn't a shift. The government has a central responsibility to its citizens. If you ask me, are more resources needed? Sure. Is the only way to do it by raising taxes, or by more federal spending? No. It's not the only way.

I think the president's shown a willingness to invest money, like with the $600 million drug treatment initiative, in new federal programs.

Q: It's charged that the government has been using the faith-based initiative in ways that are political -- for instance, making grants where it could best help Republican candidates in an election year. Is there anything to that?

A: It's nonsense. I go out and meet with senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- who support the president's initiative (and there are many Democrats who support the president, by the way). We make it clear that I'll come to their district. I'm coming to do a faith-based event with Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, in Jacksonville, Florida.

I think people are starting to recognize this isn't a partisan issue. If I were judged by where the grants went, I've done a really poor job if it was for political purposes, because one of the biggest grants went to the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, which is not exactly a Republican hotbed.

There are people in Washington who are paid to oppose President Bush's faith-based initiative -- to oppose the president, period. This is a very partisan town. This issue's going to arouse this kind of partisan passion.

My job is to try to keep this thing bipartisan, keep it in the middle, focus it on the poor. I think we've succeeded in that. But I don't ever think there will come a day when there won't be critics saying, "Oh, this is just President Bush doing something political."

Q: Who's paid to fight the faith-based initiative?

A: There are organizations, like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, who will disagree with every solitary thing President Bush does on the faith-based initiative. I think they have an extreme point of view. They oppose the Pledge of Allegiance -- "one nation under God." They just have a view that the public square should be sanitized of all religious influence. There are a lot of groups, I think, that are very tolerant until it comes to faith-based groups, and then they're very intolerant and feel they should be muzzled -- not be able to speak or have a role in the public square. They have tried to systematically secularize all government services.

The real losers when that happens are the poor. The ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] is going to sue us on any new initiative the president takes. That's just part of my job -- to expect that. I don't take it personally. In fact, I know some of these people from other work I've done in my life, and I know they believe in what they're doing. But I'm very pragmatic to say there are people in this town who will scream that the wall between church and state is crumbling down anytime President Bush speaks on the faith-based initiative.

What the president is trying to knock down is the wall that separates the poor from effective programs. I think there are a lot of Democrats, as well as Republicans, who support that initiative of the president.

Q: Since the office was set up two years, there's been an almost complete turnover in the people working there. Why is that?

A: There was my predecessor, John Diiulio, and he came with no intention of staying long, but just to help get the office started. He was there seven months, and then he left, and then the position was vacant for five months. I think the combination of those two forces and a new director coming in is going to lead to turnover. We've got really good people there, and we had good people when the office started out. I don't think the president's been ill-served at any point since he's been president.

Q: Professor DiIulio charged that what happened in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was part of a much larger phenomenon that he described -- that too much attention is paid in this White House to politics and communication and not enough to tough policy analysis. Do you want to comment on that?

A: Well, I think he came back and recanted the criticism, but I think he raises a very legitimate issue, which is trying to keep the focus of the initiative on the poor, not on all the political sideshows around it. Since I've been there, being a pro-life Democrat...I've tried to focus it on the poor. But there will always be people trying to discredit the president's initiative and trying to make it look like it's strictly politics.

I have a lot of respect for John DiIulio. He's a friend. [He has a] great heart for the poor, and I'll let him speak to clarify his own comments, because he did come back and try to set the record straight, and I think he did recant some of those criticisms. But John's point is worth repeating over and over again, which is we've got to focus on the substance of the initiative so that this really makes a difference in the lives of the poor. Otherwise, it's a monument to hypocrisy.

Q: I want to go back to the question of the overall relationship between government and religion and faith. Exactly how would you define where the line is? And is it true, as many people have suggested, that the line is shifting?

A: The Supreme Court, of course, has case law about what are inherently religious activities. Clearly, you have to monitor the use of funds the same way we monitor them now. You can't preach, and you can't lobby, and you can't divert money to commercial purposes. There are a lot of impermissible uses of federal funds that exist today that need to be monitored.

But when someone is loving a person at the door, is that preaching? You'll get a different answer, depending on who you ask. I don't think government jumps in there until it's religious words. I think the country has always acknowledged there are a lot of people who are motivated by love of God �- not just love of a paycheck -- who do things that help make this country better [and who] are often on the federal payroll. I think we draw the line where you start dealing with religious words and preaching.

Q: I'm trying to get at the president's vision of the proper relationship between the government and religion.

A: I think the president sees government and religion having complementary roles -- that there are certain things government can do and do well, and that there are certain things that faith-based organizations can do well. He often says, "Government can't love" -- it's not capable of developing that relationship with the poor.

When I worked in Florida, we had food stamp workers. Their job was to verify whether someone was eligible to receive food stamps, or not. Their job was not to befriend that poor person across the table. They were to be very cold and calculated in the analysis of whether [the poor] were meeting the eligibility criteria, or not.

It's different when faith-based groups are out there. They are there to love and to befriend and to walk with and welcome [the poor] while they're serving them soup. I just think we have to keep in mind that those things often are what help a person respond, versus just some cold, sterile program.

Q: Sometimes, as we talk about this, we can create the implication that the only way these faith-based organizations can continue is with federal money. And that's just not the case.

A: That's right. A lot of faith-based groups don't want any federal money. A lot of them feel we dilute their prophetic mission. [A] lot of them don't want the red tape or the hassle. What we've tried to make clear with this faith-based initiative is that there aren't good faith-based groups and bad faith-based groups. We're looking at how do you best meet the needs of the poor? And, hopefully, our office will provide technical assistance to organizations, whether they get federal money or not, to help them learn how to best expand, maybe, their food pantry to serve more people. I think it's crazy if the focus just turns around federal funding of any program and particularly a faith-based group.

Q: Let me turn a little bit in a different direction -- the role of religion in foreign affairs. The president sees U.S. relations with other countries as underlying, again, his worldview. Does he see it as a God-given mission?

A: Well, I don't want to speak for the president on what he sees or doesn't see. President Bush recognizes that he took his oath to defend and protect the Constitution and the American people. He takes that very seriously. He was not elected to be the government chaplain. I think President Bush takes his own faith seriously. I think he's a man of prayer. But he focuses his attention and makes his decision[s] on the policies at hand.

Q: But doesn't he feel compassion toward the poor of the world, just as he says he does toward the poor of this country? Isn't there, in the way he sees our responsibility in the wider world, some element of this same kind of thing?

A: Oh, I'm sure there is. I think he looks at his responsibilities to address, first of all, the needs of the American people. But I think anyone who sits in the office of the president looks at the world. You have to. It's your job. I think he's very cognizant of other countries, and that's why America's very generous -- billions of dollars in foreign aid. The president has just launched a huge AIDS initiative to address the poor in Africa and the horrendous consequences of the AIDS epidemic there. Clearly, the president sees that. I think he also focuses so much on America because, obviously, we have issues in our country that need to be addressed.

Q: But in addition to this country, does he see a moral dimension to foreign policy in the sense that the United States has a responsibility to try to help other people who need help?

A: I think it's been the history of our country that we reach outside our borders, not only to provide material assistance, but to provide hope. We've had generous refugee programs. We've had immigration policies that were very liberal and helpful to other countries. I think the president has always recognized America and its central role in the world. He has a very difficult job of balancing domestic policy with foreign policy. Every president has to find the right mix there. But he has always struck me as a person with a very compassionate heart.

Q: You told us you spent 12 years with Mother Teresa. As you look back on that, what did you learn?

A: I learned that she was a saint and I wasn't. That's what I learned. She was an extraordinary person, and she worked very joyfully in the midst of a lot of suffering, because she really trusted in God's providence for people and God's love for people. She described herself as "a pencil in the hand of God" that he wrote love letters to the world with. I admired her sense of purpose and joy and mission, and what I learned from her was, you have such a brief time on this earth to make a difference, and to try to give your gift in a way that brings light to others, and to be other-minded. Now my wife and I have five little children, and so those are the poor the Lord's entrusted to me right now. I was very blessed to have gotten to know [Mother Teresa] and travel a little bit with her and see how she dealt with the world. I'm appreciating more and more how I won a lottery there. So, I've got to make sure I don't squander the proceeds.

Q: You're a serious Catholic. The pope has been very, very strong in his efforts to avert war with Iraq. How do you put together your own religious beliefs about that with the government's policy of going to war with Iraq?

A: I, obviously, have no role to play in international affairs, and, therefore, I'm not subject to the information the president has that, maybe, the Holy Father doesn't have. I know that the president has a great respect for the pope. When he went to see him the last time in the Vatican, the president came back talking about what a remarkable man the pope is. I think he's respected him throughout his life.

And I think the Holy Father's role is to speak of peace. The president has spoken repeatedly against war and sees it as a last option.

Thomas More described himself as "the king's good servant, but God's first." I have never found that my serving the president was in any way in conflict with matters of conscience. I respect the Holy Father, obviously, love him tenderly, have read everything, I think, he's ever written.

When the president makes a decision about whether to go to war or not, I don't think we all know the information that he has at his disposal and the solemn responsibility that he has to make those decisions. I can't really speak [to] that, because I don't have access to the information the president has. But I trust him. And I know that he values the lives of our servicemen and the men and women who are overseas now. I was with the president recently, and he was talking about that, about how that's just an agonizing decision. It's considered the loneliest decision, I guess, a president makes. I think he takes it very seriously. It's a very hard decision.

Look at Rwanda and places where military intervention might have made a difference on a timely level to stop a tremendous amount of suffering. I was with a friend who stayed in our home the other week who's a missionary in Albania, and I asked him, what did he think of this Iraq situation? He said in Albania the people were waiting for decades for someone to come and remove the tyrant who was there, destroying generation after generation of their families' lives.

These are complicated questions. No one likes war, and I think the pope's right to speak out against it.

Q: You don't feel a personal or deep conflict about it?

A: I pray every single day to follow God's will. And, to me, that takes in the fullness of my responsibilities. I think the Holy Father is doing what God's asked him to do, and I think the president's trying very hard to discern what God asks of him and is also basing his decisions on the merits of foreign policy, and he has a lot of information that people don't have. I will defer to the president, and I trust him.

As any Catholic and many people of faith look at the "just war" doctrine [and whether] this conflict with Iraq meets those criteria, you can get a lot of really smart people together who can look at the criteria and say, "This conflict with Iraq meets it," or, "This doesn't meet it." There's a lot of dispute and disagreement about whether this kind of conflict meets the criteria, or not. These are open discussions (we have them in our church, and they take place in synagogues and mosques and a lot of places) about the right thing to do in a situation like we see there. These are things I think all Americans struggle with, including the president.

Q: One of the terrible possibilities, at least for me, is a situation developing where this could seem to millions of Muslims as an attack on their religion. Are you concerned about that?

A: In America, we have, I think, a very good, open dialogue with the Muslim community. One of the pillars of Islam is to reach out compassionately to people in need. We've enjoyed a very good dialogue with them, and I think our track record in the faith-based office has been very inclusive. The president reaches out to [Muslim] leadership frequently for face-to-face meetings.

Obviously, when you enter a period of global conflict, there are many different risks and many different things that might turn out to be, in the long run, better for humanity. It's just that war is a terrible instrument. But we see so many people suffering. Look at the Khmer Rouge and how long they were in place and what they were doing to the Cambodian people. There have been many instances where you had tyrants who subjugated their people.

I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions. I would not be the person who could make those decisions very well, because you get so torn emotionally. I just feel that these are difficult times, but at the same time, America's a great country, and we have great systems in place to deal with the governance "of the people, by the people, for the people." I think the president's very respectful of that. He and General Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the White House who advise the president -- I think they have respect for the lives of the Iraqi people. And, hopefully, this will lead to the liberation of those people.

Q: Two years ago, the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives published a performance audit of cabinet departments to identify barriers to faith-based groups. Have annual audits continued?

A: They have annual audits. Whether we publish the information -- there's no statutory requirement to publish the findings, but each year, we're checking with the faith-based centers and the different departments and auditing their activities. They have an OMB management plan just like all the other agencies, and we follow that very carefully.

Q: And you have several new pilot programs in the various federal departments, of things that might be done -- a Ready for Work program, for example, for ex-convicts. Where's the money for that coming from?

A: Well, the Ready for Work program out of the Department of Labor is funded with existing appropriations from Congress. I think it's a public-private partnership. I think there's some private money there. It's trying to help convicts who come out of prison assimilate back into society. The key to that is a support system and some work, and faith-based groups are in touch with these convicts, because they often are coming back to their homes. We've worked closely with them, and that pilot, I think, has a lot of promise in Jacksonville, {Florida].

Some of the new initiatives have specific appropriations with them. Some come from the discretionary funds that the departments have.

Q: What is the role of Michael Joyce, the former head of the Bradley Foundation, in the faith-based initiative?

A: Michael has been very helpful, I think, in trying to reach out to organizations to a) explain to them the faith-based initiative, and b) to identify model programs. We've had a lot of help from him. We probably have dozens of people like Michael who have been very helpful to us in reaching out. We are a staff of eight people at the White House office. We work, of course, with the [cabinet] departments that have staff, but in the White House itself we're a relatively small office. So we have built a lot of outreach activities to make sure that the message of the faith-based initiative is getting out, particularly since it's been so badly misunderstood. And groups have had an incentive to misrepresent it, to undermine it.

Michael has been one of many who have stepped forward, and the president respects Michael Joyce and a number of others who have come forward to help advance the faith-based initiative because they care about the poor, and they care that this initiative succeeds.

Q: It does seem as if there's been a shift with the initiative from a legislative emphasis to a reforming government emphasis. Is that true?

A: I don't think there's been a shift, but I think you are right in observing that there's been more executive branch activity than there has been legislative branch activity. If we waited for Congress to move the faith-based legislation, we'd be waiting a while because, as you know, with the first Congress, nothing happened. The House did a very good job, but when it came time for the Senate to vote on it, a couple of senators blocked the legislation, unfortunately, which really, I think, hurt the poor.

President Bush said he wanted to do anything he could, as chief executive, to move the initiative forward. And those were the regulatory actions he took in December.

The initiative's going to continue on both tracks, regulatory as well as legislative. I'm meeting with members of Congress right now to talk about the legislative prospects of our faith-based bill; and we're confident that, because it has so much bipartisan support, it's going to succeed.

Q: When does it come up in the Senate?

A: It could come up in the next month, but it's going to require a willingness on the part of a couple people who want to block it at all costs to be open to letting the Senate speak its will and vote on it. Unfortunately, with the rules in the Senate, only a couple senators can block things from ever coming to the floor. We're working with them on that. We're hopeful.

America's charities are hurting right now -- United Way, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, Jewish Federation. Wherever you go and ask what kind of year they had fund raising in 2002, they'll tell you it wasn't a good year. So, we owe it to the charities to look at meaningful assistance to them, and we're hopeful that that will happen.

Q: The war and its aftermath could make it even more difficult for Congress to find money for anything domestic, including programs that you might like to see supported more. Is that a problem for you?

A: I have so many problems to deal with that are in the here and now, I'm going to avoid the problems of conjecture. We clearly look at the future. There are so many different things that could happen. We'll focus on the president's budget, which he submitted to Congress and which had some very promising faith-based initiatives in it and try to advance that and work with the House and Senate to get as much of that enacted as possible.

Q: But there's no question, is there, that the war and whatever the aftermath -- the reconstruction of Iraq, are going to back out a lot of domestic spending?

A: It could. You'd have to ask the budget director. There are a lot of different things that could happen. We could have bigger deficits. The economy could rebound because of a successful international campaign that could lead to greater revenues and shrinking deficits. There are so many economic models, and I'm not an economist. I'm going to deal with the problems at hand and the opportunities at hand to advance the president's initiative and, hopefully, to make a difference in the lives of the people in need in our country.

Q: How does your office choose where to go when you go on your regional "road shows?"

A: It's largely invitation-driven. For the regional conferences -- we just took a map out and found five places that seemed regionally located: Los Angeles, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Chicago. I get invited a lot. I try to travel as much as I can without losing my life as a father and husband. A lot of my schedule is driven by the invitations. Members of Congress invite me to come and do a faith-based roundtable, if I go to a convention [in their district].

Q: You sponsor regional workshops in how to apply for federal grants, but is there also a kind of general meeting in which people get up and testify about what religion and faith have meant for them?

A: I don't know about the testifying part. There's a bunch of different kinds of gatherings that we have. The White House conference like we had in Chicago had almost 2,000 people. That's just a very intense, one-day informational [meeting] on how to work with the federal government and on the initiative.

We will go to communities that will have a roundtable where a diverse group of people gathered, and we don't really control those forums too much, because they're often organized by groups that invite me to attend it, versus the White House organizing, like we do, these big conferences. I go to the places Republicans [and] Democrats want me to go -- if they're supporting the initiative. I'm not going to go sit and waste time someplace that's undermining it.

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