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Re: first page of a disturbing article
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sbec-@sbcglobal.net
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May 14, 2007 08:14 PDT
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Norman,
Unless you have a specific proposal that you think the board should consider in regards to this article, I think it would be more appropriate to post this kind of thing on the AU general e-list.
-Stuart
Norman Abshear <nabs-@gte.net> wrote:
Greetings all
What follows is the first page of a disturbing article in todays new york
times. My browser crashed before I could get the second page of the article.
I am curious, does Lori Lippman Brown know about this and what is she doing
to object to this type of behavior by our public officials. Can more be
done?
With regards as to getting a new editor for the RA, Skylar Curtis
already does the layout for us. Can she possibly do the editoral duties as
well?
First page of NYtimes article.
Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: May 13, 2007 New York Times
St. Vincent College, a small Benedictine college southeast of Pittsburgh,
wanted to realign a two-lane state road serving the campus. But the state
transportation department did not have the money.
Religious organizations have long competed for federal contracts to provide
social services, and they have tried to influence Congress on matters of
moral and social policy - indeed, most major denominations have a presence
in Washington to monitor such legislation. But an analysis of federal
records
shows that some religious organizations are also hiring professional
lobbyists
to pursue the narrowly tailored individual appropriations known as earmarks.
A New York Times analysis shows that the number of earmarks for religious
organizations, while small compared with the overall number, have increased
sharply in recent years. From 1989 to January 2007, Congress approved almost
900 earmarks for religious groups, totaling more than $318 million, with
more than
half of them granted in the Congressional session that included the 2004
presidential election. By contrast, the same analysis showed fewer than 60
earmarks for faith-based groups in the Congressional session that covered
1997
and 1998.
Earmarks are individual federal grants that bypass the normal appropriations
and competitive-bidding procedures. They have been blamed for feeding the
budget deficit and have figured in several Capitol Hill bribery scandals,
prompting
recent calls for reform from White House and Congressional leaders.
They are distinct from the competitive, peer-reviewed grants that have
traditionally
been used by religious institutions and charities to obtain money for social
services.
As the number of faith-based earmarks grew, the period from 1998 to 2005 saw
a tripling in the number of religious organizations listed as clients of
Washington
lobbying firms and a doubling in the amount they paid for services,
according
to an analysis by The Times.
Sometimes the earmarks benefited programs aimed at helping others. There
have been numerous earmarks totaling $5.4 million for World Vision, the
global
humanitarian ministry, to conduct job training, youth mentoring and gang
prevention programs. Another earmark provided $150,000 to help St. Jerome's
Church in the Bronx build a community center, and Fuller Theological
Seminary,
a leading evangelical seminary in Pasadena, Calif., received $2 million to
study
gambling and juvenile violence.
But many of the earmarks address the prosaic institutional needs of some
specific religious group, like the ones giving the Mormon Church control
over
two parcels of federal land of historic significance to the church,
transferring
10 acres of federal forest land to a small church in Florida, allowing a
historic
church surrounded by a federal park in Ohio to use public land to expand its
parking space, and handing several acres of government land over to a
Catholic college in New Hampshire. (An interactive database of almost 900
faith-based earmarks can be found at nytimes.com.)
Earmarks have also helped finance new buildings on religious college
campuses, including a fitness center at Malone College, a small evangelical
Christian liberal arts college in Canton, Ohio.
The $1 million that helped build the center came from an earmark by
Representative Ralph S. Regula, whose district includes the college,
according
to Suzanne Thomas, director of communications for the college. Another
earmark helped pay for a new school of nursing, she said.
In seeking the earmarks, the college hired a Washington lobbyist "to help
us with a 'boots on the ground' program of meeting with various
Congressional and Senate leaders," Ms. Thomas said, noting that many
private colleges are enlisting similar lobbying help.
Several scholars who wrote books about religious advocacy work in Washington
in the 1980s and early 1990s say the push for earmarks identified in The
Times
analysis represents a sharp departure from the lobbying strategies
traditionally
associated with religious groups. One of them, Allen D. Hertzke, a professor
at
the University of Oklahoma in Norman, said, "I never heard religious
lobbyists
talk about earmarks." That view was echoed by Daniel J. B. Hofrenning, a
professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn.: "Getting heavily into
the
pork-barrel politics of earmarks - that is a distinctive change."
It is a shift that some religious advocates find worrisome.
"Earmarks are bad public policy," said Maureen Shea, director of the
Episcopal Office of Government Relations in Washington. "If earmarks are
not in the public interest, I would wonder why the faith community would be
involved in them. It would hurt our credibility."
James E. Winkler, who has represented the United Methodist General Board of
Church and Society since 2000, says he fears that the pursuit of earmarks
could muffle religion's moral voice. "For example, we've opposed the war
since
day one," he said. "But what if an earmark benefiting us - money for a
Methodist
seminary, perhaps - is attached to the supplemental appropriation for the
war?
You can see how very serious moral conflicts could arise."
The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the
National
Association of Evangelicals, said that while religious organizations should
be able to compete for federal money, such groups "shouldn't do that through
earmarks." He explained, "As good stewards of the public trust, we have to
be
transparent and above board - and earmarks are not transparent or above
board."
And, constitutional lawyers point out, because the First Amendment prohibits
direct government financing of religious activities, earmarks that steer
money to
religious groups pose constitutional risks. Indeed, several faith-based
earmarks
were successfully challenged as unconstitutional long after Congress
approved
them.
Paul Marcone, a lobbyist and former Capitol Hill staff member who
specializes
in getting earmarks for nonprofit clients, disputes the notion that
religious groups
should not pursue them.
"Ubi dubium ibi libertas." Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
- Latin proverb
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