Wade's Horn of Plenty

Wade's Horn of plenty

By Bill Berkowitz

Created May 7 2007 - 7:59am

It's difficult to know exactly what Wade Horn [1] was thinking in the days

prior to his resignation from the Department of Health and Human Services

(HHS): Perhaps he didn't relish the thought of having to defend his pouring

of millions of dollars in taxpayer money into abstinence-only sex education

programs that have been thoroughly discredited; perhaps he was worried about

being brought in front of a congressional committee and asked to account for

some of his other grant-making decisions.

Perhaps he was concerned about being subjected to charges of cronyism --

involving contracts to organizations he has been closely affiliated with --

and/or nepotism -- involving subcontracts attained by his wife's company

from organizations that received faith-based money. Perhaps he was thinking

that the revelation "shortly before his resignation" that the nearly $1

million he gave to the National Fatherhood Initiative [2] ( NFI ), where he

was the president for at least three years until joining the Bush

administration in 2001, was only the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps it was all of the above.

Whatever the reasons, in early April, Wade Horn opted to resign from his

post as the Assistant Secretary for Community Initiatives [3] at HHS .

During his tenure at HHS Horn was the Bush Administration's point man for

welfare reform, Head Start and abstinence-only education, and as such, he

was a veritable faith-based slot machine for religious organizations, some

of which he had longtime close relationships.

Despite charges by David Kuo [4], the former second-in-command at the White

House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives who, in his book

"Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction" claimed that the

Bush Administration short-changed Christian faith-based organizations, Horn

was responsible for placing hundreds of millions of dollars in the religious

right's and conservative philanthropy recipients' collective coffers.

On April 18, a little more than two weeks after his rather unexpected

resignation, Horn joined Deloitte Consulting LLP as a director in the

organization's Public Sector practice. According to [5] PR Newswire, Horn

"will be a key advisor to health and human services clients of Deloitte

Consulting's state government practice"

Why did Horn suddenly resign?

In two recent postings at Talk to Action, Cynthia Cooper, a playwright and

the author of several nonfiction books, carefully tracked some of Horn's

shenanigans. In a post called "Hand That Feeds" [6] (March 3, 2007), Cooper

wrote that Horn, who oversaw a budget of $47 billion, was "very kind to

Religious Right organizations, including the one that he founded in 1994

with Religious Right money -- the National Fatherhood Initiative (website

[7]) in Gaithersburg, Maryland."

According to Cooper, Horn gave "the National Fatherhood Initiative a ... '

Capacities Building ' grant in the amount of $999,534 from a program he

started in his agency and called by the familiar-ringing name of the

'Responsible Fatherhood Initiative.'"

Cooper also pointed out it was Horn who "approved the hiring of columnist

Maggie Gallagher [8]" -- who also worked for [9] the National Fatherhood

Initiative -- "to promote marriage"; and "gave money to writer Mike McManus

to support marriage promotion, while also giving money to McManus'

organization, Marriage Savers [10] (website [11]) ('a ministry that equips

.... local congregations to prepare for lifelong marriages ...')." Horn was

also a founding board member of Marriage Savers.

In addition to the NFI grants, in 2006, the organization received a $2.279

million no-bid contract from the Assistant Secretary's office, investigative

reporter Mike Reynolds told Media Transparency. That money, according to OMB

Watch [12], is part of a $12.382 million contract that runs through the year

2011, three years after the end of President Bush's second term.

Before Horn resigned, Cooper notes that he had been "recently handed

additional money to dispense -- the $157 million in abstinence-only

education. He has a nifty idea that abstinence programs could go beyond

students, and become engaging programs for adults, as well."

After Cooper's story on Horn appeared in early March, several other

commentators added to the conversation. In a posting titled "Blowing the

Whistle on Wade Horn" [13], the revealer asked: "Why is Wade Horn invisible

to the press? Is it because the media is part of a vast right-wing

conspiracy? Is it because reporters hate women and queers? Not likely.

Rather, it has more to do with a decades-long decline in press coverage of

the federal government's middle managers, who oftentimes have more influence

over our everyday lives than the boldface names. Such stories don't sell

papers, but they do serve the public interest."

In her regular column for the National Organization of Women, Kim Gandy,

president of NOW wrote "Right Wing 'Father'land" [14] in which she pointed

out that Horn, "Opposing everything NOW stands for (from abortion rights to

economic justice), ... founded the National Organization of Fathers [15]

[which later changed its name to the National Fatherhood Initiative], and

openly stated his belief that 'the husband is the head of the wife just as

Christ is the head of the church.' He even advocated that federal benefits,

such as Head Start and subsidized housing, should only be available to

children of married couples, not single parents. So of course the Bush

administration put him in charge of all the welfare and public assistance

programs that primarily serve those very same single mothers he so detests.

And did he find a way to derail the funding away from single moms? You bet

he did."

The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association said in a

statement that in his position, Horn "administer[ed] both the Abstinence

Education Grants to States program (Title V) and the Community-Based

Abstinence Education (CBAE) program. During Horn's tenure, the CBAE program

saw major funding increases, bringing the current total for federally funded

abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs to $176 million per year.

Horn also oversaw a dramatic tightening of HHS restrictions on how

abstinence-only funds can be used, and promoted an increased emphasis on

marriage and faith-based initiatives."

In her follow-up post after his resignation titled "Wade Leaps" [16] (April

3), Cooper pointed out that there were other troubling things going on

during Horn's reign: "Horn had stonewalled successfully for years. A legal

action filed with the HHS Civil Rights division by Legal Momentum, pushed

some buttons. It alleged sex discrimination in 34 of 100 programs funded

under the 'Responsible Fatherhood' initiative, and cited the funding that

went directly to Horn's old program as running as high as $5 million."

"As Democrats control the House and Senate and Henry Waxman is driving the

House Oversight committee, Wade Horn had to know that he and his discredited

faith-based abstinence-only programs and their funding were smack in

Waxman's crosshairs," Mike Reynolds, author of a book on politics, money and

the religious right to be published by St Martins Press in 2008, told Media

Transparency in an e-mail exchange.

"Given the choice between answering subpoenas and facing the CSPAN cameras

like the hapless Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or moving on to a more

lucrative position at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu seems like a no-brainer to

me," Reynolds added. "And it's no surprise that he landed at Deloitte since

his old boss at HHS , Tommy Thompson, heads the Deloitte Center for Health

Solutions."

All in the [Horn] family

Reynold has also been keeping a sharp eye on Horn's wife Claudia, who

founded and heads Performance Results Inc. (PRI), which according to its

website is "an organizational services and support firm specializing in

evaluation, evaluation training, and data systems to support evaluations."

PRI has worked as subcontractor for the Institute for Youth Development

(IYD) and its sister nonprofit, the Children's Aids Fund (CAF).

Reynolds pointed out that IYD, which has received millions of dollars from

HHS , provides technical assistance and training to abstinence-only groups,

crisis pregnancy centers, "healthy marriage" programs and other Bible-based

ministries regarding how to receive government grants and how to manage

their respective operations.

Claudia Horn also provides ResultsOnline, "a customized, web-based program

evaluation system that enables users to design their own program evaluation,

create customized surveys, input participant information, and create

powerful summary reports."

In the course of his research, Reynolds found that "according to its GSA

filing, PRI's 'sales to the general public/state or local government' for

2005 was $1.1 million, with an additional $250,000 coming from federal

contracts. As project director ... Horn charges $1,551 per day for training.

PRI's client list posted on their web page includes the Department of

Justice, Office of Personnel Management, HUD, the Institute for Youth

Development and the National Fatherhood Initiative. ...

With IYD and NFI -- both so closely entwined with the [former] Assistant

Secretary -- regularly pulling in millions of federal dollars from his CAF

for their 'faith-based' outsourcing and then subcontracting to his wife's

company to service those federally-funded programs appears to be far less

than six-degrees of separation."

Claudia Horn is also the co-author, along with Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D.,

Calvin W Edwards, Karen M Woods and Collette Caprara of a recent Heritage

Foundation [17] Special Report [18] titled "Outcome-Based Evaluation:

Faith-Based Social Service Organizations and Stewardship" (March 29, 2007).

The Special Report deals with something the authors call "Outcome-based

evaluation (OBE)" which they claim "is a tool ... [that allows] faith-based

organizations to define specifically what success means for their programs

and then measure the degree to which they achieve those goals. This

discipline not only documents effectiveness, but also helps the

organizations to refine the work they do and thereby begins a cycle of

continuing improvement and greater success."

The Deloitte brand

Previously known as Deloitte & Touche, which, according to [19] Wikipedia,

was formed by the merger of Touche Ross and Deloitte Haskins & Sells

(outside of the UK ) in 1990, a section [20] of its website, titled "About

Deloitte" reads:

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein

[association], its member firms, and their respective subsidiaries and

affiliates. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is an organization of member firms

around the world devoted to excellence in providing professional services

and advice, focused on client service through a global strategy executed

locally in nearly 150 countries. With access to the deep intellectual

capital of approximately 135,000 people worldwide, Deloitte delivers

services in four professional areas -- audit, tax, consulting, and financial

advisory services -- and serves more than one-half of the world's largest

companies, as well as large national enterprises, public institutions,

locally important clients, and successful, fast-growing global growth

companies. Services are not provided by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Verein,

and, for regulatory and other reasons, certain member firms do not provide

services in all four professional areas.

Wikipedia notes that as of 2006, the company had some 135,000 professionals

at work in nearly 140 countries, "delivering audit, tax, consulting and

financial advisory services to more than one-half of the world's largest

companies. The US firm employs over 33,000 people (2005) and the UK firm

employs over 10,000 people (2006)."

When asked about Wade Horn's role at Deloitte, Mike Reynolds pointed out

that Deloitte Touche "is a major player in social services and welfare

privatization -- a lucrative field where corporate and faith-based interests

congenially feed. Horn is a perfect fit with both."

"Deloitte did particularly well with Thompson heading HHS and Horn working

there," Reynolds noted. "Their contracts with the department increased more

than tenfold. In the year 2000, Deloitte had $2 million in contracts with

HHS ; between 2005 and 2006 that figure increased to more than $25 million.

With Thompson and Horn now in the Deloitte shop, one wouldn't be surprised

to see those contracts bump even higher over the next two years."

Meanwhile, back at HHS , a statement issued on April 2 by HHS Secretary Mike

Leavitt indicated that Daniel Schneider [21], a deputy assistant secretary

for children and families, will serve as acting assistant secretary until a

replacement for Horn is named.

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson