In our chapter on civic culture, we discuss federal subsidies for faith-based organizations. In a previous post, we discussed the current administration's White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Ben Smith and Byron Tau report at Politico:
The story of the Obama administration's large-scale spending on faith-based groups has been largely untold, perhaps because it cuts so sharply across the moment's intensely partisan narrative. And in fact, when the stimulus was being debated in February 2009, conservatives attacked the bill as "anti-religious" in its spending guidelines.
But an analysis by POLITICO found that at least $140 million in stimulus money has gone to faith-based groups, the result of an unpublicized White House decision to spend government money, where legal, supporting religiously inspired nonprofit groups. And that decision was just the beginning.
In an aggressive attempt at outreach, federal agencies, in conference calls and online seminars, instructed faith-based groups on how to apply for the grants, and federal officials sometimes stepped in when the state officials who distribute the money were reluctant to spend it on groups associated with churches and other religious establishments.
