At the heart of the Contract with America is a promise to deliver on promises made: "If we don't deliver, throw us out."

(1) Steep reductions in Federal spending toward a balanced budget and a reduced national debt.

(2) Savings of hundreds of billions of dollars by reduction in the size and shape of the Federal bureaucracy.

(3) Devolution of political power and fiscal authority to the states and local government.

(4) Drastic reform and reduction of governmental welfare programs.

(5) Reduction, revision, or outright elimination of Federal regulations across the board but especially in environmental affairs.

(6) Tax policy and "privatization" to encourage investment, improve efficiency, and strengthen business.

(7) Reduction or elimination of Federal support for the arts and humanities, reduction of support for research in all fields.

(8) However, maintenance and even increased funding for defense.

There are two other social factors worth mentioning:

The first is the continuing decline in public trust and confidence in American institutions. If the Federal government inspires anger, contempt, even hatred and fear, similar emotions are aroused by the perceived power and greed of large business corporations. Universities have fallen in public esteem because they are thought to neglect teaching in favor of self-serving but irrelevant research. Similar disdain is expressed about large hospitals and medical centers. The professions of medicine and law are suspected of putting client interest second. "Investigative" and over-dramatized journalism is a corrosive influence even when its findings are well-grounded. It is difficult to assess the social damage of the loss of trust and confidence but intuitively many of us are persuaded that the decline of trust is a matter of grave concern.

A second social factor to be added to the profile is the recently-reported extent of self-centeredness. Self-centeredness is a better term than selfishness, but the emphasis is on an inward-turning toward the self that may redirect attention from the claims of community.

(Perhaps this is the Thatcher phenomenon in America. The Filer Commission report appeared in 1975, the year Margaret Thatcher succeeded Edward Heath as prime minister.)

These debates take place in a context that changes constantly but in a societal framework that presents the American people with a recurrent set of questions. One of the questions is the role of philanthropy (defined here as voluntary service and voluntary giving to voluntary, nonprofit associations formed to advance charitable and philanthropic purposes). The United States has always done more of the public business through these public but nongovernmental means than other societies. The scale and scope of voluntary action for the public good is a first question. There are three other related questions:

(1) To what extent is each individual citizen responsible for his or her own well-being? In considering health-care reform, for example, one issue is the weight we should put on individual responsibility. How much of the cost of services, which specific medical or other health services, what part of the insurance provision should be borne by individuals? There is a deeply- ingrained individualism in American life and culture that makes personal responsibility for self-help a matter of morality as well as economics.

(2) Individualistic though Americans may be, they also live in a web of reciprocity--family, association, neighborhood, labor union, church--an array of memberships based on the premise of mutual aid. Family has been the most important unit of mutual aid, but as the extended family has reduced to the nuclear family and as the phenomenon of isolated individualism has grown, mutual aid has become problematic. What should be its share?

(3) For these and many other macroeconomic and geopolitical reasons, there are many important goods that we conclude cannot be provided by philanthropy or will not be provided by the self- interest logic of self-help and mutual aid. The assumption has been that there are always public goods that only government can or should provide -- defense and police, a road system, foreign policy, and less widely appreciated, help in meeting the basic needs of the poor, especially in times of economic stress and realignment. Government assistance is then one of the four questions, weighted in the balance with self-help, mutual aid, and philanthropy. These questions are at the heart of political debate today. The weightings are being shifted, responsibility reallocated.

The first demand of the new conservative political leadership is that government at all levels, but especially at the Federal level, should be reduced in size, scope, cost and impact. The only exceptions are tax incentives for business and expenditures for the military establishment.

The most visible target of reduced spending is "welfare," especially when it appears to be offering support to the unemployed, able-bodied--that is, undeserving--poor. Because attacks on the undeserving poor also seem to threaten children, the elderly, and other of the pitiful and vulnerable, philanthropy's role should increase to take up the slack. Increased philanthropic giving for welfare to protect the vulnerable who might otherwise be inadvertent victims of the new legislation is a high priority of the new leadership. There is some talk of tax credits to spur giving for welfare purposes; the assumption is that the priorities of American voluntary giving will change to respond to the new political realities.

The future of American philanthropy is therefore problematic. It will be asked to do more in absolute terms, to carry a larger share of the financial responsibility, first of all. It will also be asked to change its priorities from the current profile:

Religion 58.87 billion/45.3%  

Education 16.71 billion/12.9% 

 Human Services 11.71 billion/9.0% 

 Health 11.53 billion/8.9% 

Arts 9.68 billion/7.5% 

Unclassified 9.59 billion/7.4% 

Public/Society Benefit 6.05 billion/4.7% 

Environment/Wildlife 3.53 billion/2.7% 

International Affairs 2.21 billion/1.7%