The Obama Approach

Here's the Obama faith-based proposal. On first blush, it looks like a pretty modest thing, mostly directed toward building capacity among grass-roots religious (and secular) organizations: training, partnering, evaluation. The only actual program initiative is a $500 million summer learning program for 1 million children--with the money to come, in the usual campaign promise way, from "cutting wasteful spending in government procurement and management." Of course, summer programs for that many kids will cost a lot more; organizations wanting to run such programs will be helped to apply for grants from community foundations. Bottom line: some useful management, half a billion more dollars than the Bush program, a determination to avoid sticky church-state wickets, and a bit of bully pulpiteering. No reason for Barry Lynn to get all huffy--and he doesn't, so much.