Policy Review articles from March 1997

Policy Review archives from March 1997

Faith, growth, and charity. (charitable contributions)
March 1, 1997... "Implementation of a federal flat tax with no charitable deduction will cost the nonprofit sector $20 billion a year in lost giving." This statement, from a recent article in the Non-Profit Times, echoes the mantra of those who believe that...

While TV moguls dither, parents' guides deliver.
March 1, 1997... For years, parents have worried about television exposing their children to violent, licentious, and vulgar images. If the TV industry won't stop broad- casting trashy shows, they have complained, at least it ought to provide families with...

Courts cast pall over parental-rights bill.
March 1, 1997... In 1948, Congress passed a law that allows a litigant in a federal court to exercise what amounts to a peremptory challenge to a judge, just as an attorney might strike a juror. The members of the 80th Congress believed their intent was clear,...

Making adversity the mother of invention.
March 1, 1997... In 1994, Ryan Jarvis had a tragic accident on the basketball court at his high school. While scrambling for the ball during a pick-up game, Ryan, 16, got elbowed in the face. The blow severed his optic nerve and blinded him in his right eye....

Download your local sheriff.
March 1, 1997... When a wheelchair-bound neighbor was beaten and another friend was raped and robbed in the space of two weeks, Ken Donovan was horrified. Feeling that ordinary citizens could do more to protect their own communities, Donovan and his wife,...

Spiritual capital for the capital city.
March 1, 1997... While President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich hold out the hope of federal aid for Washington, D.C., some local churches aren't waiting for government to rejuvenate the city's most depressed neighborhoods. The Hope Center, a...

Wisconsin's welfare miracle.
March 1, 1997... Everyone wants--or or professes to want--to "end welfare as we know it." Despite such lofty proclamations, welfare is still thriving. Last year, federal and state governments spent $411 billion on means-tested welfare programs that provide...

The 7 deadly sins of government funding for private charities.
March 1, 1997... Welfare reform is once again forcing upon Americans an age-old debate: How should we, as a society, care for the neediest among us? Until about the 1960s, privately funded charities were the most vital and visible answer to that question --...

I hear America singing: the arts will flower without the NEA. (National Endowment for the Arts)
March 1, 1997... The death knell is sounding for the National Endowment for the Arts. The agen- cy's federal appropriation last year fell by one-third, from about $150 mil- lion to about $100 million, and its appropriation may be cut again or even eliminated in...

Broken ladder: government thwarts affordable housing.
March 1, 1997... From all appearances, federal policy on affordable housing is facing its most searching reassessment in decades. As housing policy comes up for reauthoriza- tion in Congress, the decades-old approach of housing low-income tenants in massive...

"There you go again": liberal historians and the 'New York Times' deny Ronald Reagan his due.
March 1, 1997... On December 15, 1996, the New York Times Magazine published Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s recent survey of 32 historians and other "experts." He had asked them to rate every U.S. president as "great," "near great," "average," "below average," or...

We wuz robbed! The subsidized stadium scam.
March 1, 1997... Spring is upon us, and the thoughts of all right-thinking Americans turn to baseball. The crack of the bat and the sight of neatly mowed grass on a sunny day stir us in much the same way as they did our parents and grandparents, and hopefully...

Islands of excellence: a congressional strategy for community renewal.
March 1, 1997... As Washington lawmakers grapple with the federal government's fiscal deficit, America continues to suffer from a deficit in its social, cultural, and moral resources. Among teenagers, the rates of crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock pregnancy,...

A job-training pioneer. (early American inventor/educator Peter Cooper)
March 1, 1997... Peter Cooper had a simple idea: to build an institution that would enable working-class men and women "to acquire useful knowledge," he once wrote, "and to find and fill that place in the community where their capacity and talents can be...