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Cato Daily Dispatch for September 23, 2003

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Back to the U.N.: President Defends U.S. Strategy
Public Campaign Funding Program Needs Revamping
Bush Takes 'Faith-Based' Steps

Back to the U.N.: President Defends U.S. Strategy

"Unbending in spite of widespread opposition, President Bush returned to the United Nations on Tuesday to try to marshal support for a deliberate transition to democracy in Iraq," reports The Associated Press. "In his speech, Bush invited the United Nations to play an expanded role in Iraq's reconstruction. The world body should assist in preparing a constitution for Iraq, help train civil servants and conduct free and fair elections, he said"

According to Christopher Preble, Cato's director of foreign policy studies, the president's speech "reveals a fundamental misreading of the situation in Iraq, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the threats confronting the civilized world."

"The process toward [Iraqi] self-government must begin immediately, it must be conducted rapidly, and it must be followed by a swift end to foreign occupation. If the international community can help in this process, and if the Iraqis desire it, then international involvement is welcome. But we should not presume that multilateralism will be more successful than the alternative. Indeed, to the extent that a larger international presence delays Iraqi independence, it will only result in an increase in the threat of terrorism.

"The United States must return to its political traditions, and its governing documents. It must confront the known threats facing us today-the threat from Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations of global reach. The fight against terrorism is more likely to succeed if the world joins us; but it will most certainly fail if we do not end our ruinous imperial policies that place American troops in nearly every corner of the globe and do nothing to protect the homeland from those who are so anxious to kill us."

Public Campaign Funding Program Needs Revamping

"The system that provides taxpayer money to help fund the campaigns of presidential candidates is on the brink of collapse and needs a major overhaul, an independent advisory panel said Monday. The system was created after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s to prevent corruption by encouraging small donations and to prompt wider competition among candidates," reports USA Today.

In "Government Financing of Campaigns: Public Choice and Public Values," John Samples, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government, writes: "Government financing of campaigns takes money from taxpayers and gives it to a subset of all political candidates. For that reason, government financing seems either unnecessary or immoral. It is unnecessary if a taxpayer agrees with the candidate supported by the subsidy; the taxpayer may simply give the money directly to the candidate. If, however, the taxpayer disagrees with the candidate, taxing him to support that candidate is immoral."

He goes on to say: "Government financing forces all taxpayers to financially support candidates they would not otherwise support, candidates whose views they may find repugnant. On the question of government financing of campaigns, Thomas Jefferson should have the last word: 'To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.'"

Bush Takes 'Faith-Based' Steps

"President Bush repealed and proposed several regulations yesterday to make it easier for religious charities to receive federal money, including allowing such groups to make hiring decisions based on job candidates' faith," reports The Washington Post.

"The announcements were the most significant steps so far in Bush's plan to pursue his 'faith-based' initiative through administrative power after encountering congressional resistance to doing so through legislation."

In "Corrupting Charity: Why Government Should Not Fund Faith-Based Charities," Michael Tanner, Cato's director of Health and Welfare Studies, writes: "Government dollars come with strings attached and raise serious questions about the separation of church and state. Charities that accept government funds could find themselves overwhelmed with paperwork and subject to a host of federal regulations."

He adds: "We are the most generous nation on earth. In 1999, Americans contributed to charity more than $190 billion, more than $80 billion of which was given to religious organizations. That was an increase of more than $4 billion over the previous year. ... As [charities] become increasingly dependent on government money, those charities could find their missions shifting, their religious character lost, the very things that made them so successful destroyed. The whole idea of charity could become subtly corrupted, the difference between the welfare state and true charity blurred. That is a very high price to pay for a handful of federal dollars."

Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org