Is the GOP trying to destroy the nonprofit sector?

[primavera]

I work (for the moment) in refugee resettlement and have been watching with horror the systematic assaults on funding for the nonprofit sector since der Führer usurped President Gore's office. At first, I thought it was perhaps just a natural response to the heightened national security climate and the tanking economy, but I'm beginning to wonder. Every now and then, the New York Times will write a piece on how the US is no longer honoring its treaty obligations with respect to protecting refugees and Congress will call State Department and INS on the carpet, at which time State will promise the moon and stars about how they're going to change their ways, and will request, and receive from Congress, large sums of funding to support refugee programs. Then, the instant that Congressional attention is distracted, they go right back to actively gutting programs for supporting refugees. This last week, State Dept notified our agency that, although they had already sought and received funds from Congress based upon a certain number of refugees they were supposed to admit this year, they actually had no intention of admitting even the tiniest fraction of that number of refugees. Instead, they were simply going to take the money and run, and so any proposal by resettlement agencies to provide services to refugees based upon the numbers State Department presented to Congress would be automatically rejected. Playing tricks like this, State Dept has managed to reduce funding - and, as a result, capacity - for refugee resettlement by approximately 75% over the last couple of years.

Call me a tinfoil hatter, but I feel like I'm beginning to detect a pattern here: publically, the administration voices its vehement support for refugees, education, health care, whatever, name your cause, then systematically guts every program for supporting those causes, then they get to blame the skeletelized remains of the gutted agencies charged with providing services for failing to do their jobs properly. This then becomes "proof" that the glorious GOP was right all along about "big government" programs: see, they simply don't work, we'd be so much better off eliminating all forms of public assistance and turning all of that sort of thing over to private corporations to provide on a fee for service basis.

What do you all think? Am I just paranoid, or is there kind of a suspicious pattern at work here?

[cap]

1. yes, it is happening all over the place

go check on an outfit called OMB Watch. They are examining about a dozen contracts held by liberal organizations that have criticized Bush. These organizations have had their funding yanked or "reviewed" or "audited" by the federal government. Any way the feds could put the squeeze on them, they have.

They are killing you by inches. Plus you lose support from your native constituency because you aren't doing anything. You can't get help from the feds and you've lost credibility from your base supporters.

[MisterP]

2. have you read up on Norquist and his fellow ideologues?

that seems to be their whole plan from the get-go!

[catzies]

3. No you're not a tinfoil hatter and your last paragraph nails it.

You answered your own question exactly.

It's not what they say, it's what they do. And they're doing just what you said they're doing. It's systematic and very much a part of the plan. And who gets the contracts for those programs when they're privatized? Look at any list of GOP donors for the answers.

[pw]

4. For all the nonprofits they don't like

Some, like the military-industrial think tanks and the "faith-based" initiative folks, are doing just fine.

But promising money to help the downtrodden and then breaking the promise as soon as people look away is standard Twit Regime procedure.

Just look at the budget request for Afghanistan, the Every Child Left Behind Act, the money Twit said the US would spend to combat AIDS in Africa...

[primavera]

6. Actually, we are one of the "faith based" organizations

The majority of the resettlement agencies are faith-based organizations tied to churches, as the meagre federal assistance historically offered to refugees has never even come close to meeting their actual needs, so resettlement has always required substantial charitable and voluntary contributions which churches are the best equipped to provide. So we actually are one of those faith-based organizations who supposedly are doing fine thanks to the shrub's faith-based initiative. Yet, surprise, surprise, there hasn't been so much as a single solitary drop of support from the administration to support the activities which they were so eager to turn over to faith-based organizations. Evidently what the shrub meant when he offered up his faith-based initiative was that faith-based organizations should do all of the social welfare work he didn't want his administration to be responsible for, and do it all without financial support, since, I guess, people of faith won't mind living in cardboard boxes beneath bridges and watching their families starve.

[GOPisEvil]

5. I believe the GOP wants to return to "noblesse oblige".

That is: we, the wealthy, will determine if your cause is worthy of our support. Charity is the role of people as individuals and of the church.

Yes, that's a load of crap, but that is what I think the GOP wants.