On the public dime
Republicans do not have a governing majority, argues Jennifer Rubin. What Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.) did with her thin Democratic margin as speaker, Republicans cannot with theirs. Not without the Democrats’ help. This leaves Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in a unique position. He has the best of both worlds:
He’s not responsible for electing a speaker whose Christian fundamentalist views and financial questions make him a weight around the necks of Republicans in swing districts. He can castigate Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for his noxious views and effectively produce legislation that does not compromise Democrats’ minimum standards. At a Wednesday news conference, Jeffries emphasized, “House Republicans are unable to govern on their own. Period, full stop, no further observation necessary.”
Rubin describes what Democrats are able to do (and have) from the back seat. “Now, imagine what Democrats could do if they had the mathematical majority,” she concludes.
Gerrymandering and sluggishness have left Democrats here in North Carolina in a far weaker position. Their goal in the last few elections has been just to hang onto the governor’s mansion and win themselves just enough numbers to sustain Roy Cooper’s veto. That evaporated when former Democrat Rep. Tricia Cotham switched parties in January.
All that leads to what North Carolina Republicans are doing with their override majorities: subsidizing Mike Johnson’s Christian fundamentalism. Carolina Forward explains:
As reported by the News & Observer, the new state budget included millions of dollars in direct state grants to churches and religious organizations. Just a few examples include:
- $4 million to the Mooresville Area Christian Mission (Iredell)
- $1.5 million to the Community Church of Mt. Pleasant (Cabarrus county)
- $100,000 to the Carolina Christian Academy (Davidson)
According to state and federal law, public money may not be used for sectarian purposes, and must be for activities that are for “public purposes only.” Spokespeople for many of the groups who received funding insisted that this is what they do. Yet it’s clear this isn’t true. Many of the evangelical churches receiving funding – for example, Mt. Pleasant’s Community Church – publicly proclaim their discrimination against broad classes of people, especially those who identify as LGBTQ. A sectarian private school like the Carolina Christian Academy does not serve the public by definition.
No similar Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist/agnostic organization received any such direct funding in the state budget, which is also a very telling omission.
Add to those $20 million for “crisis pregnancy centers.” CF explains, “One such group, LifeLink Carolina, which received a whopping $12.5 million direct grant, was cited by the state just a few years ago for spending previous grant money on religious literature and Bible study courses, in plain violation of federal law.”
Then there is the religious right (and vulture capitalists) raiding public school funding, The Big Enchilada, that largest slice of the annual budget pie in all 50 states (of which I’ve written since the aughts). Carolina Forward again:
One of the most controversial parts of the new state budget was the massive expansion of the state’s school voucher program, which subsidizes tuition at private religious schools at the expense of public schools. Under the expansion as written, the voucher program could receive as much as a half-billion dollars annually by 2032. The voucher program is expected to wipe $200 million out of North Carolina’s public school system just in the next three years alone.
This staggering amount of state money has some fraudsters seeing dollar signs. With the promise of free money from the state, with almost no restrictions or oversight (such as curriculum or testing standards) and a history of fraud, the voucher program is an almost irresistible target. Take, for example, Sam Currin, a Republican former state judge and convicted felon fraudster who recently published an op/ed titled, “Should Your Church Start a School?” The tsunami of state funds available for vouchers, with few if any hard requirements, is virtually tailored to produce a proliferation of junk “schools” aimed at vacuuming up voucher money, without any real intention to educate.
Even with far-right Christianity in decline, evangelicals are determined to create a theocracy in this country. At public expense. When that happens in majority Muslim countries, that’s bad. When evangelicals do it, it’s God’s will.
The American evangelical church, beset on one side by a rampant sexual abuse crisis and an epidemic of fraud and political hucksterism on the other, has plainly lost the political power, to say nothing of the social trust, it held just a decade or two ago. And perhaps that is for the best. It would plainly be better for any healthy religious movement to focus on the spiritual realm, instead of the political one. Yet with so much money to be made playing politics, some evangelical leaders may find it hard to resist.
For big charter companies, it’s simply about the predictable, government-guaranteed, near-recession-proof stream of public tax dollars. For evangelicals, it’s what you get combining right-wing politics with the prosperity gospel. Getting rich with God is nothing new. What is new over the last couple of decades is evangelicals treating public education dollars as a religious entitlement and a means of funding its goal of turning the U.S. into a Christian theocracy.
Funding the poor with tax dollars? That’s bad. Funding Christian nationalism with them, that’s God’s plan.