Helms wants churches to do foreign aid
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he wants all U.S. foreign aid channeled through private charities and religious groups.
___"The time has come to reject what President Bush correctly labels the 'failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies' and, instead, empower private and faith-based groups who care most about these issues," Helms said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
___Helms also called for eliminating the Agency for International Development, the nation's primary foreign aid office.
___Helms said President George W. Bush's vision of "charitable choice" should not stop at the water's edge and cited the work of Samaritan's Purse, the relief organization headed by Franklin Graham, as an example.
___"My friends, these are the armies of compassion that President Bush is talking about," Helms said. "And I put it to you: If we can deploy these armies of compassion across America, then we can and must deploy them around the world."
___Many humanitarian and relief groups working overseas already receive substantial funding from the U.S. government.
___Under the Helms proposal, the Agency for International Development would be eliminated and its humanitarian and relief budget of roughly $7 billion a year would be given to a quasi-government foundation that would then make grants to private and religious groups.
___He also said that if his plan is implemented, he would support an increase in foreign aid spending.
___A spokesman for Gen. Colin Powell, Bush's choice to be secretary of state, was non-committal about the proposal, telling the New York Times, "We welcome his (Helms') ideas and his contribution to the debate."
The Baptist Standard
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