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United States News Title: Iowa conservative group hosting potential GOP candidates accepted $3 million in federal grants IOWA CITY, Iowa — A conservative group that has brought a string of potential presidential candidates to Iowa to lecture about the need to reduce government spending owes some of its past success to generous federal grants, which it has since rejected amid charges of hypocrisy. The Family Leader has organized multicity forums for Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Sen. Rick Santorum. Each has called for reining in federal spending and talked about family values. The same group received more than half of its funding from federal grants over a five-year period when it operated under a different structure as The Iowa Family Policy Center. The group was among those that benefited from former President George Bush’s faith-based initiative, which made it easier for social and religious organizations involved in community work to win federal funding. The organization defends taking the grants, the bulk of which helped provide marriage mentoring for couples, but decided last year to turn down the final $550,000 in grant money and operate free of government involvement. In all, the group had accepted more than $3 million in federal grants since 2004. “We wanted to be consistent in calling for more efficient, smaller government and came to the conclusion that would best be served by not taking funding from the feds on this,” said group spokesman Chris Nitzschke. The group in November changed its name to the Family Leader under a reorganization that put former Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats in charge. Its leaders played a key role in the successful campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices last year over a ruling that legalized gay marriage. The new group is now trying to flex its political muscle in the lead-up to the Iowa Caucuses in January. Two more potential GOP nominees, former business executive Herman Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, are on the group’s calendar. “We begin our pro-family policy agenda by cutting spending, and then we cut taxes,” Bachmann said at one event in April. In March, Paul told the group that society had grown too dependent on the federal government and “we’re at a point now where we can no longer afford it.” Pawlenty said in February that, to the extent government has to be involved in an issue, it must deliver good value for taxpayers. Edward Failor Jr., the former president of Iowans for Tax Relief, criticized the group’s credibility on tax and spending issues during last year’s gubernatorial campaign because of the millions in federal aid. He praised its decision to reject the final year of the grant, saying that marriage mentoring is a service that churches and other groups can provide without government aid. “I think they did it to be intellectually consistent and honest. Good for them for doing that,” Failor said. “As soon as you start taking money out of taxpayers’ pockets, you are beholden to the government in one way or another.”
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