Anti-abortion groups and other organizations that support Bush's social agenda have received at least $157 million in federal funding this year, the Washington Post reported March 22. This includes groups run by Christian conservatives and Republicans who have openly supported Bush's campaigns for presidency.

One such group is Heritage Community Services, a small, sexual-abstinence education group that had a $51,288 budget prior to the current administration taking office. By 2004, the group had received nearly $3 million from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for abstinence education programs in three states.

The president has and exercises the right to establish spending priorities, said Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS. But, he added, "Whether they support the president or not is not a test in any of my grant programs. Whoever got these grants wrote the best applications, and the panels … rated them objectively."

Some argue, however, that religion-based funding naturally fuels groups that support Bush's conservative base. Most spending on conservative groups comes from Bush's Compassion Capital Fund for faith-based and community groups, which awarded $148.3 million between 2002 and 2005, and the Community-Based Abstinence Education grant program, which has received $391.7 million in appropriations since 2001.

Part of the recent trend includes over $60 million in federal grants to hundreds of struggling anti-abortion centers, doubling or tripling their annual budgets. Much of the increases can be accounted for by Bush's Faith and Community Based Initiative, which has spurred more religious and community groups to apply for federal grants and encouraged the $2 billion a year in awarded to religious and religiously affiliated organizations.

"I believe ultimately this will be seen as one of the largest patronage programs in American history," Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) said. But Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, pointed out that Democrats are the recipients of many of these social services.