“Politics ain’t beanbag,” they say, and “they” are surely right.
But when you think of a federal government office that is supposed to work alongside religious organizations to help those in need, you probably do not think that office should be encouraging propaganda on behalf of ObamaCare socialized medicine.
Nevertheless, that is what happened in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm elections. Politico.com, a print and online newspaper in the Washington, D.C., area, reported that the president and his faith-based initiatives office held a conference call to get leaders of faith organizations around the country to promote extremely unpopular ObamaCare.
“Get out there and spread the word …,” the president urged those leaders. “The debate in Washington is over; the Affordable Care Act is now law. … I think all of you can be really important validators and trusted resources for friends and neighbors, to help explain what’s now available to them [through ObamaCare.]”
Jim Towey, former President George W. Bush’s director of faith-based initiatives — and a Democrat — was troubled by this obvious politicizing of his former office.
“Do we really want taxpayer-funded bureaucrats mobilizing ministers to go out to all the neighborhoods and spread the good news of universal coverage?” he wrote in a recent column in The Wall Street Journal. He offered this recommendation to the current president: “If he cannot restore [the office’s] focus to promoting successful programs that serve our country’s poor, then he should … close the faith-based initiatives office.”
We understand that the president is eager to defend and promote his agenda. But he should not channel those highly partisan efforts through an office that is supposed to be working with religious groups and leaders to help the poor or others in need.