Bush Admin gives tax dollars to organizations allied with its social agenda

[BrainGlutton]

From the Washington Post, 3/22/06 (registration required but free) – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/21/AR2006032101723.html?sub=AR:

Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.

An example is Heritage Community Services in Charleston, S.C. A decade ago, Heritage was a tiny organization with deeply conservative social philosophy but not much muscle to promote it. An offshoot of an antiabortion pregnancy crisis center, Heritage promoted abstinence education at the county fair, local schools and the local Navy base. The budget was $51,288.

By 2004, Heritage Community Services had become a major player in the booming business of abstinence education. Its budget passed $3 million – much of it in federal grants distributed by Bush’s Department of Health and Human Services – supporting programs for students in middle school and high school in South Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky.

Among other new beneficiaries of federal funding during the Bush years are groups run by Christian conservatives, including those in the African American and Hispanic communities. Many of the leaders have been active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush’s presidential campaigns.

Programs such as the Compassion Capital Fund, under the Health and Human Services, are designed to support religion-based social services, a goal that inevitably funnels money to organizations run by people who share Bush’s conservative cultural agenda.

Is this right or wrong? As the lead paragraph points out, for years conservatives have been complaining about “the liberal tilt of federal grant money.” Is turnabout fair play?

[One_amoung_many]

Of course it’s wrong. But are you surprised?

Suggested reading,

http://www.americantheocracy.net/

[One_amoung_many]

Please note that book I linked above was written by a republican.

[Neurotik]

Is it wrong in a general sense? Yes. Grant money should go to those organizations that prove they can do the job best, not the ones that support the ideological agenda (I’m not saying that Heritage doesn’t do the job best, I dunno). Is it wrong by what pretty much every other administration has done? No, not really. It’s to be expected.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Neurotik

Is it wrong in a general sense? Yes. Grant money should go to those organizations that prove they can do the job best, not the ones that support the ideological agenda (I’m not saying that Heritage doesn’t do the job best, I dunno). Is it wrong by what pretty much every other administration has done? No, not really. It’s to be expected.

Cite for other administrations doing the same thing?

[John_Mace]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Cite for other administrations doing the same thing?

Well, did you read the first paragraph of the OP’s link:

For years, conservatives have complained about what they saw as the liberal tilt of federal grant money. Taxpayer funds went to abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood to promote birth control, and groups closely aligned with the AFL-CIO got Labor Department grants to run worker-training programs.

Further in the article:

The distribution of new money to conservative organizations is a small part of an estimated flood of $2 billion a year in federal grants to religious and religiously affiliated organizations. For decades, in Democratic and Republican administrations, well over $1 billion annually has been going to such groups, most of it to mainline organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army and Lutheran Social Services.

So, some grant money went to organizations that promote policies that Bush’s administration has been trying to promote itself. I don’t necessarily like it, but is this really something new?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@John Mace

Well, did you read the first paragraph of the OP’s link:

Further in the article:

So, some grant money went to organizations that promote policies that Bush’s administration has been trying to promote itself. I don’t necessarily like it, but is this really something new?

Well Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO are not religious organizations. I thought it was the religious part that was the big deal. I’ve been pretty sick today so I’m not real clear in the head.

[WillMagic]

@John Mace

Well, did you read the first paragraph of the OP’s link:

Further in the article:

So, some grant money went to organizations that promote policies that Bush’s administration has been trying to promote itself. I don’t necessarily like it, but is this really something new?

Of course not. And it’s not going away unless government goes away. The goverment isn’t made up of benevolent angels. It’s made up of humans, and humans respond to incentives. There are massive incentives for government officials to be corrupt…so they are. It’s not their money they have to allocate - it’s ours.

[tomndebb]

@BrainGlutton

Is this right or wrong? As the lead paragraph points out, for years conservatives have been complaining about “the liberal tilt of federal grant money.” Is turnabout fair play?

Unless there is evidence that similar money has been withheld from groups that are not supporting the administration (or that such groups have had funding cut), it seeems like much ado about nothing.

As I recall, the standards for garnering government support never seriously changed even after Bush announced his “faith based initiatives,” so groups who are getting funds, today, theoretically need to meet some minimum standard of effort and distribution. If we are simply saying that “abstinence” does not work so the government should not be funding it, I see that as simply a difference in philosophical direction between this adminitration and previous ones.

Unless someone has evidence of abuse–denial of funds to successful groups with philosophical differences or disbursement of funds to clearly unsuccessful groups–I don’t see this as an issue.

[John_Mace]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Well Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO are not religious organizations. I thought it was the religious part that was the big deal. I’ve been pretty sick today so I’m not real clear in the head.

Nope. From the OP (empahsis added):

Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.

And of course “funneled” isn’t exactly a neutral word. Makes it sound like Bush sought out those groups rather than the other way around.

I dunno. This just doesn’t strike me as anything odd. Why shouldn’t the Bush administration favor grants to groups that have agendas similar to his? Do we really expect him to “funnel” money to NARAL? Would we expect a Democratic administration to “funnel” money to STOPABORTIONNOW.ORG?

[Mr.Moto]

@John Mace

I dunno. This just doesn’t strike me as anything odd. Why shouldn’t the Bush administration favor grants to groups that have agendas similar to his? Do we really expect him to “funnel” money to NARAL? Would we expect a Democratic administration to “funnel” money to STOPABORTIONNOW.ORG?

Not really odd, no. What is striking, though, is the fact that the AFL-CIO and Planned Parenthood affiliated groups continue to get their government grants even under a Republican administration.

[BrainGlutton]

@tomndebb

Unless there is evidence that similar money has been withheld from groups that are not supporting the administration (or that such groups have had funding cut), it seeems like much ado about nothing.

It’s not “much ado” at all. It’s just something the government is doing with our money, which the Post reported on because it has obvious news value. Nobody is making an election issue of it, AFAIK.

[Renob]

I think we are looking at it backwards. Anyone who has gone through the government grant process can attest that this process is not one that simply hands out money to ideological friends. There are a variety of forms to be filled out and, above all, the recipient organization must be able to meet the terms of the grant. The organizations, regardless of their ideology, meet the terms of the grant. It’s not corrupt bureacrats funneling money to political allies; it’s bureaucrats granting money to organizations that can fulfill the terms of the grants. Since the Bush Administration is more socially conservative, however, and since he has been in office his Administration has been designing grants to promote more socially conservative values, of course socially conservative organizations will meet the qualifications.

And, WillMagic, there are not “massive incentives for government officials to be corrupt.” In fact, there are massive disincentives for these bureaucrats who are allocating grants not to be corrupt. Have you ever dealt with one of these DC bureaucrats? They are so bound up by rules and regulations, and they are so scared of losing their comfy job, that they will do little to rock the boat. I’m no big fan of bureaucrats or big government, but I’ll rise to the defense of these folks whenever anyone calls them corrupt. Unless you have evidence to back up your assertion, you should probably rethink it.