another plasterer. A week later, the crack was back again. Finally the homeowner called an old painter, who took one look and said, “Son, first fix the foundation and then you can fix the crack in the wall.”
The crowd nodded and clapped. Then Tony turned to me. “Governor, I have something to say to you,” he said.
“We need to fix the foundations,” he said, “and your old government programs aren’t doing the job.” He said he had a better alternative. It was the most effective welfare system in the world. It had buildings on many street corners, a list of willing workers, and regular meetings to study the perfect manual for saving lives.
He was talking about houses of worship. And he was right. Faith-based programs had the potential to change lives in ways secular ones never could. “Government can hand out money,” I said, “but it cannot put hope in a person’s heart or a sense of purpose in a person’s life.”
I looked for ways for Texas to partner with faith-based organizations. I met with Chuck Colson, Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, who had spent time in a federal penitentiary and found redemption. Chuck had founded an organization devoted to spreading the Gospel behind bars. We agreed to start a faith-based program in one wing of a Texas prison. Chuck’s program, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, would provide instructors for Bible study and a life lessons course. The program would be optional and open to prisoners near the end of their sentences. Each inmate who participated would be connected with a mentor and welcomed into a church congregation upon release.
In October 1997, I visited the Jester II prison near Sugar Land, Texas, where several dozen inmates had enrolled in InnerChange. At the end of the tour, a group of men in white jumpsuits filed into the courtyard. They formed a semicircle and struck up “Amazing Grace.” After a few stanzas, I joined the chorus.
The next morning, Karen Hughes brought me the
When I ran for president, I decided to make a nationwide faith-based initiative a central part of my campaign. In my first major policy speech, delivered in Indianapolis, I said, “In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based organizations, to charities, and to community groups.”
Nine days after my inauguration, I issued executive orders creating an Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the White House and in five Cabinet departments. The offices changed regulations and broke down barriers that had prevented faith-based charities from accessing the federal grant-making process. To emphasize the initiative’s nonpartisan nature, I appointed Democrats to serve as the first two directors. One was John Dilulio, an innovative professor from the University of Pennsylvania. The other was Jim Towey, a thoroughly decent man who had led Florida’s social services department and served as Mother Teresa’s lawyer. I used to tell Towey that we sure have a litigious society if Mother Teresa needed a lawyer.
Some said the faith-based initiative blurred the line between church and state. I took that concern seriously. Government should never impose religion. Every citizen has the right to worship as he or she wishes, or not to worship at all. I was always wary of people who used faith as a political weapon, suggesting they were more righteous than their opponents. My favorite Bible verse for politicians is Matthew 7:3—“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
At the same time, government need not fear religion. If social service programs run by people of faith did not proselytize or discriminate against people receiving services, I thought they deserved a chance to compete for taxpayer dollars. The government should ask which organization would deliver the best results, not whether they had a cross, a crescent, or a Star of David on their wall.
The initiative opened up roughly $20 billion a year in federal funding to competition from faith-based groups. Many of these organizations had no experience interfacing with government, so we held forty conferences and more than four hundred grant-writing seminars to help them apply for funding. Ultimately, more than five thousand faith- based and community organizations, mostly small grassroots charities, received federal grants.
In January 2008, I visited the Jericho Program of East Baltimore. Operated by Episcopal Community Services of Maryland and funded by a grant from the Department of Labor, the program provided mentoring, counseling, and job training services to recently released adult male convicts. The nine men from Jericho were quiet when I walked into the room. I detected a fair amount of skepticism. “I drank too much at one point in my life,” I said to break the ice, “and I understand how a changed heart can help you deal with addiction.”
The men opened up and told their stories. One had been convicted of selling drugs, another of cocaine possession, another of theft. Many had been in and out of prison several times and had abandoned their families. Thanks to the services they received at Jericho, they had begun to find purpose in their lives. One man emotionally explained how thrilled he was to have reunited with his three daughters. “Six months ago, I was broken down,” he said. “Now I am shaking hands with the president.” Another told me proudly that he had received two job offers. “Drugs have always been a problem in my life, up until now,” he said. “Thanks to Jericho,” he said, “I got my groove.”
The Jericho Program’s recidivism rate was 22 percent, less than half of Baltimore’s overall rate. The men I met that day were among fifteen thousand who had benefited from the Prisoner Reentry Initiative we launched in 2004. Their recidivism rate was 15 percent, one third of the national average.
My most extraordinary meeting on faith-based initiatives took place right across the hall from the Oval Office. In June 2003, I had convened a roundtable discussion with faith-based leaders. Chuck Colson and several members of InnerChange attended. When I stepped into the Roosevelt Room, I spotted a familiar-looking African American man. I walked over and gave him a big hug. “I’m sure glad you’re here,” I said.
It was George Mason, the man from the prison choir in Sugar Land. Upon release, he had earned a job as a janitor at his church. He also led a Bible study and served as a mentor for others leaving prison. What a testimony to the redemptive power of Christ: George Mason and George W. Bush together in the West Wing.
With George Mason.
Created by President Johnson in 1965, Medicare had helped countless seniors enjoy healthier lives. But while medicine had advanced, Medicare had not. Benefits were determined by a government bureaucracy that was wasteful and very slow to change. When private insurers added mammogram coverage to protect against breast cancer, it took Medicare ten years and an act of Congress to catch up.
Medicare’s most antiquated feature was that it did not cover prescription drugs. The program would pay $28,000 for ulcer surgery, but not $500 a year for pills that would prevent most ulcers.
I was struck by the stories of older Americans who had to choose between buying groceries and medicine. One sixty-nine-year-old woman I met, Mary Jane Jones of Virginia, had to work twenty hours a week just to afford her nearly $500-a-month bill for prescription drugs and insulin. She told me she sometimes used needles three or four times to save money.
Medicare wasn’t just outdated; it was going broke. The combination of rising health costs and the upcoming retirement of the Baby Boom generation had created a $13 trillion unfunded liability. The next generation would get stuck with the bill.
The rising costs bankrupting Medicare affected the whole health-care system. America’s health spending had doubled from about 7.5 percent of GDP in 1972 to more than 15 percent in 2002. Part of the explanation was the cost of new medical technology. Junk lawsuits also played a role. But the primary cause was a fundamental flaw in the system: Most people had no idea what their health care cost.
Seniors and the poor had their bills paid by the government through Medicare and Medicaid. Most working Americans received coverage through their employers and relied on a third party, an insurance company, to negotiate prices and determine payments. Many self-employed Americans couldn’t afford health insurance because the tax code disadvantaged them and regulations prohibited small business owners from pooling risk across jurisdictional boundaries.
What the system lacked was market forces. There was no sense of consumerism or ability to shop around for the best deal, no competition for customers’ business, and no transparency about quality and price. As a result,
