Poverty Law Prof Blog

Light-Hearted Post: Dogs over Indigent

From the New York Times: "The two people who described the statement said Mrs. Helmsley signed it in 2003 to establish goals for the multibillion-dollar trust that would disburse assets after her death. The first goal was to help indigent people, the second to provide for the care and welfare of dogs. A year later, they said, she deleted the first goal."  Full story here.  Helmsley it should be remembered is quoted as saying "only the little people pay taxes" (CommonDreams story here). 
 

-ER. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Principle or Campaign Driven Support of Faith-Based Delivery of Social Services?

Barack Obama announced yesterday that he wants to continue Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program and, according to a New York Times story here, he may consider "elevating the director of his Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to a cabinet-level post."  Obama's speech is available on his website here.  A Washington Post op-ed by Michael Gerson that is not very sympathetic and touches on the politics of this policy can be found here.  I expect tomorrow's papers will have many more op-eds on the topic as writers react.  The following resources look at or touch on Bush's faith-based programs:

• John J. DiIulio Jr., Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future (2007). 
• David Kuo, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (2006)
• Martha Minow, Should Religious Groups Be Exempt from Civil Rights Laws?, 48 Boston Coll. L. Rev. 781 (2007) and somewhat relatedly: Martha Minow, Partners, Not Rivals: Privatization and the Public Good (2003).
• Office of Faith Based Initiatives, The Quiet Revolution: The President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative: A Seven-Year Progress Report (White House 2008). 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Unequal America: Cover of Harvard Alumni Magazine

Although it, naturally enough, contains a mainly citations to Harvard professors, the cover story of the Harvard alumni magazine has a brief eight page story that pretty quickly covers many of the issues of inequality in the U.S.  The story is: Elizabeth Gudrais, "Unequal America: Causes and consequences of the wide--and growing--gap between rich and poor," Harvard Magazine (July-Aug 2008). 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu