Toto
May 14, 2007, 04:56 PM
Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/business/13lobby.html)
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. ....
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. ...
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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. ....
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. ...
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