The Lord Giveth... Surprise, So Do You!

Silent Cal Coolidge was wrong when he said oh-so-succinctly that the chief business of the American people is business. The religion of America is business -- and, as the Bush administration is also making clear, the business of America is religion.

This is faith-based government that goes both ways: George Bush evidently has faith in business' divine right to profit, and in churches' divine right to break even on the taxpayer buck.

Like game-show prizewinners, businesses rebuilding the Gulf Coast will enjoy fabulous prizes: no-bid contracts, and sweetheart deals like the cost-plus ask-no-questions arrangements that have already turned Iraq into a mind-boggling government contract moola sweepstakes that makes those $9,000 wrenches and $600 toilet seats in the Pentagon procurement scandal of the '80s look like Wal-Mart bargains.

And now, Calvinism's tenet of prosperity as a sign of divine favor -- from both Calvins, Coolidge and John -- is extending its hand to houses of worship. The Washington Post reports that GOP lawmakers and the Red Cross have been baying for federal taxpayer funds to reimburse churches and religious groups for their expenses -- shelter, food and supplies.

A charity which was asked to help by state or local governments in the hurricane zone -- and with FEMA not doing much, officials were frantic for any help -- can get repaid for "a wide range of costs ... including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water," the Post quoted FEMA spokesman Eugene Kinerney in an e-mail.

Labor costs? Last I heard, God has a volunteer army, not a draft. The Bush administration has crafted a perfect system: FEMA, which didn't do its job right in the first place, repays the churches that helped Katrina and Rita victims who couldn't get the government to do what it was supposed to do for them. Now the feds can say, See? We told you -- we don't need government to help Americans. We just need godly Americans to help Americans! And that's how the government privatizes and outsources to churches the most basic assistance the government exists to offer to its people.

One group probably in line for a payback is Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing, which a top charity listed on FEMA's website for Katrina donations. This is the same Pat "let's take out Hugo Chavez" Robertson who is supposedly non grata in the Bush White House.

Civil liberties groups are worried about this federal foot wedged in the church door -- not just for what it represents now, but for the precedent. Why tear down the wall between church and state when you can buy it and sign it over? Stuff like this has conspiracy theorists giving one another high fives: conservative guru Grover Norquist always said he wanted to make government small enough to drown in bathtub, and now he has, in the bathtub of New Orleans. Government abdicated its job and outsourced it to houses of worship.

The feds will reimburse "labor costs," as the Post quoted the FEMA e-mail. This is the one to watch: if churches' labor costs are repaid at the federal minimum wage or higherr, while the same minimum wage has been suspended for the average working man and woman trying to rebuild the savaged Gulf Coast and their own lives, you'll know that while Katrina survivors may have a friend Upstairs, they don't have one at Pennsylvania Avenue.