Courtesy of Rep. Henry Waxman and the House Oversight
Committee, yet another reason why we need a new direction for America.
On June 19, Waxman's committee exposed favoritism in grant funding decisions by
the Bush Administration's Department
of Justice. Make no mistake, we're
talking about a lot of money here. For
comparison, in 2006 the federal government spent $419 billion on federal
contracts, but it handed out even more — $488 billion — in federal grants.
It seems that J. Robert Flores, Administrator of the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, decided to ignore DOJ staff rankings and
recommendations for awarding millions of dollars in grants to organizations
that address national juvenile justice initiatives. For example, Justice Research and Statistics Association
was the top scoring group out of the 104 applicants. It scored a 98 out of 100
and was universally praised by career employees for its effectiveness and good
work. (It provides training and technical assistance to state juvenile corrections
workers.) But it was not selected or
funded.
Instead, Flores, a Bush-appointee, chose to give the
majority of the grant funding to five programs that his staff had not
recommended for funding. One was an abstinence-only program. Two were
faith-based programs. Another was a golf program. What's more, all of these
groups appeared to have special access to Flores that other applicants were
denied.
It's just business as usual for the Bush/Cheney administration. Need we say
more?
- Hugh
