‘One of the largest patronage programs in American history’

March 22, 2006

I’ve been following Bush’s faith-based initiative since it was unveiled five years ago, and it never ceases to amaze me how it manages to get worse over time. It was bad enough when the president was ignoring the separation of church and state, and funding religions against the will of taxpayers, and putting families in need in a position of receiving government-sponsored proselytizing, and subsidizing religion-based employment discrimination.

But turning the entire faith-based initiative into a slush fund to reward his conservative allies is probably low.

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.

In the Bush administration, conservatives are discovering that turnabout is fair play: Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have flowed to groups that support President Bush’s agenda on abortion and other social issues.

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.

Literally hundreds of anti-abortion centers have seen their budgets, in some cases, triple in size, thanks to an infusion of tax dollars. Abstinence-only programs have seen the same trend. The scales have apparently tipped in the direction of those who have been “active Republicans and influential supporters of Bush’s presidential campaigns.”

Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.) told the WaPo, “I believe ultimately this will be seen as one of the largest patronage programs in American history.”

When conservative Republicans agree with this assessment, you know Bush’s program has gone awry.

Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources, and a long-time proponent of Bush’s faith-based initiative, criticized the effort, saying it “has gone political.”

“Quite frankly, part of the reason it went political is because we can’t sell it unless we can show Republicans a political advantage to it, because it’s not our base,” he said, referring to the fact that many of those receiving social services are Democratic voters.

That’s quite an admission. As Souder, a conservative Republican, sees it, the faith-based initiative had to start rewarding those on the right because, if the aid simply went to worthy causes, the GOP would reject it. As usual, it’s all about what officials can do for the Republican “base.”

Shameless.

It’s even worse than you suppose.

I was asked to evaluate one of these faith-based abstinence programs in a medium upstate NY city. The rfp called for independent evaluators, but had a strange requirement: that at least one person on the team be “experienced” evaluating faith-based programs. Sometimes requirements such as these are legitimate, such as when one has a complex bureaucracy or program to deal with. But how hard are abstinence programs to figure out? And when only a few people–often with vested interest in the success of the program–qualify, then one beings to think of cronyism and, worse, a veiled attempt to subvert the evaluation from within via patronage. When we consulted with the agency about this requirement, there was only one person that the agency could think of (as we, being independent, were damned if we could think of anyone reputable), but she was one of those who developed the program. We attempted to compromise by suggesting that she be brought on as a consultant for a couple thousand, meaning that we could ignore her advice but still use her name on the grant. And so it was agreed, or so we thought. But the agency then, without informing us, negotiated 30% of the research budget for this one person. When we objected, the agency wouldn’t budge and so we refused to do the evaluation.

Normally, an evaluator cannot be said to be independent unless s/he controls the budget. If the agency being evaluated can dictate to the evaluator how to spend the money, then what does that say about the independence of the evaluator…?

In other words, even the evaluation component has a patronage aspect. And, moreover, at least one agency administering the abstinence project wanted to ensure that the evaluator was not independent. This whole thing stinks of corruption from top to bottom.

  • Providing birth control or abortion counseling or job training is a *service* for which there is an apparent societal need. Such government service is available to anyone, regardless of their creed (or the lack thereof). “Faith-based” does require a particular creed and often involves faith activities only. I cannot see how they have managed, all these five years, to pass Constitutional muster. Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, George McGovern and Barry Goldwater, would be horrified at the idea of the federal government funneling funds to the likes of Pat Robertson.

  • Republicans are always talking about “the base.”

    “Al Qaeda” translates as “the base.” Given who the Republican “base” is, this is not really coincidental if you think about it. Perhaps calling the American Taliban the American Al Qaeda (an accurate assessment) might not be such a bad move?

  • I’m on the flip side – a development director for a nonprofit who has lost millions of dollars in gov’t funding as a result of not being ‘faith based’.

    This is interesting (from the WP article):

    “Horn and other officials said politics has not played a role in making grants. “Whoever got these grants wrote the best applications, and the panels in rating these grants rated them objectively, based on the criteria we published in the Federal Register,” he said. “Whether they support the president or not is not a test in any of my grant programs.”

    Um, yeah, the awards are/were based on well-written proposals that answer those criteria published in the Federal Register. Including the part where you HAVE TO BE a Faith Based Org.

  • This post reminds me of an excellent bit of insight I read just after the Katrina disaster last year. It begins,

    “I think the puzzling behavior of FEMA is because it has been designed under Bush to be primarily a vehicle for delivery of politcal patronage, and only secondarily as a disaster relief agency.”

    http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/4/124241/5233#comment-42360

    With that post I began to see Bush’s patronage model of government everywhere I look.

  • The anecdotes Mr. Flibble and Nancy share are borne out whenever someone tries to actually analyze these programs on a performance basis. Amy Sullivan wrote such a piece for the Washington Monthly a year or two ago:

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.2sullivan.html

    As a social policy researcher, I actually can buy the notion that faith-based programs might be useful in certain applications: pre-marriage relationship counseling, say, or substance abuse. But if they can’t be justified on the merits–particularly at a time when every other kind of social service contract from a government agency is moving toward a stronger performance basis–they shouldn’t get your tax dollars, or mine. Period.

  • Katie’s comment about “Bush’s patronage model of government” brings two rather nightmarish words to mind:

    “Tammany Hall.”

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