Faith or cronyism in the White House faith-based initiative?

The White House faith-based initiative is in the news again.

The program has been controversial  from the start -- derided by critics for requiring the needy to accept religion along with acts of charity, and avoided by some religious groups who feared they'd lose their church/state independence from government.

Now, amid new allegations that contracts were awarded to the politically connected, the program is getting the presidential spotlight. At a national conference Thursday, Bush plans to say that the program has helped millions.

"It does not matter if there is a crescent on your group's wall, a rabbi on your group's board or Chirst in your group's name," Bush will say, according to advance excerpts released today by the White House. "If your organization puts medicine in people's hands, food in people's mouths or a roof over people's heads, then you are succeeding, and the government should support your work."

ABC News reported Tuesday that the Justice Department gave a $1.2 million grant jointly to a California evangelical youth charity called Victory Outreach and a consulting firm run by a Lisa Trevino Cummins, who headed Hispanic outreach efforts for the White House faith-based office featured in the photo above. The allegation, first brought by career employees at the Justice Department, is being investigated by the DOJ's Inspector General.

"The incident of cronyism removes all doubts that the real mission of the faith-based initiative is to aid the religious right," said Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, the president of Interfaith Alliance, an advocacy group with 185,00 members of 75 different faiths. "Congress needs to exercise greater oversight on this program so that we can avoid scandals like this in the future."

Gaddy is not the first to charge foul. Former White House staffer David Kuo charged that after he left the administration federal funds were funneled to evangelical Christian charities without congressional approval.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Eric Draper / White House

Comments

[WN]

The above mentioned grant (ABC news report) was NOT funded. No tax dollars or any other dollars went to Victory Outreach or the consulting firm.

[Anna Fowler]

This article frightens me as does this president. I know this to be true because Cheney contracted with many of his favorite companies to do work in Iraq, costing taxpayers millions and millions of dollars and the work was rarely completed. Blackwater was one of those cos, owned by Eric Prince of I believe S. Carolina. He claims to be a "Born Again Christian", is a hidden multimillionaire and gives Big Bucks to all Christian Right Republicans as does his family. We all know the methods Blackwater used to extract information from Iraq's suspected terrorists. Many innocent men and women were tortured in inhumane ways and the pictures shown to us on our TV's were horrific. This is not a Christian way to treat any child of God - according to The Good Book. Halliburton also received multimillion dollar contracts through Cheney who recently bragged about the powers bestowed on him by Bush. Criminal powers I would say. This face-based intiative needs to be disbanded. The Bush Clan has abused the taxpayers dollars enough - H. Bush, G. Bush, J. Bush, N. Bush - They have been the benefactors of every scan ever pulled going back to H. Bush's father who acquired wealth from his scams in Germany. If it isn't OIL, it is the fact that GW has made millions selling stock options in companies he crippled or destroyed by selling those options. "Inside information" he evidently has. e.g., Finally admitted the economy was in a recession in Sept of 2008 - after lying for 9 months that our econcomy was "healthy". Plenty of time for him and his cohorts to sell off their stock options again before letting Americans know that we were in deep doo doo. I could go on, but I do wish down the line, this administration will be found guilty of criminal activities, especially those committed against the Geneva Convention.