Wade Horn

Wade Horn was "the Bush administration's point man for welfare reform, Head Start and abstinence education." He resigned April 2, 2007, as Assistant Secretary of Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. His resignation was effective April 8, 2007. Horn then joined Deloitte & Touche LLP. [1]

Federal Government Work

Horn, a child psychologist, joined the Bush administration in July 2001. [2]

"As Assistant Secretary, Horn ran the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which administers 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." [3]

At HHS, Horn was involved in some of the Bush administration's pundit payola scandals. Horn "'approved the hiring of columnist Maggie Gallagher' -- who also worked for 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 ("a ministry that equips ... local congregations to prepare for lifelong marriages ...").' Horn was also a founding board member of Marriage Savers," reported Bill Berkowitz, quoting research done by Cynthia Cooper. [4] [5]

Claudia Horn

Horn's wife, Claudia Horn, heads Performance Results Inc. (PRI), an "organizational services and support firm specializing in evaluation, evaluation training, and data systems to support evaluations," reported Bill Berkowitz. "PRI has worked as subcontractor for the Institute for Youth Development (IYD) and its sister nonprofit, the Children's Aids Fund (CAF)." [6]

PRI benefited greatly from federal dollars given to abstinence and marriage promotion programs under Wade Horn's watch. [7]

"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 (National Fatherhood Initiative) -- 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."

Profiles

Prior to entering government service, Horn founded the private, non-profit National Fatherhood Initiative (web). [8] The organization was previously called "National Organization of Fathers." [9]

SourceWatch Resources

• Faith-based and Community Initiatives
• government-industry revolving door
• Maggie Gallagher
• Michael McManus

External links

• Howard Kurtz, "Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract," Washington Post, January 26, 2005.
• cyncooper, "Hand That Feeds," Talk To Action, March 3, 2007.
• Kevin Freking, "Assistant secretary for children and families resigns," Associated Press (Houston Chronicle), April 2, 2007.
• Tyler Lepard, "Breaking News: Wade Horn Resigns," RH Reality Check, April 2, 2007.
• cyncooper, "Wade Leaps," Talk To Action, April 3, 2007.
• Bill Berkowitz, "Wade Horn cashes out", Media Transparency, April 25, 2007.
• Bill Berkowitz, "Wade's Horn of plenty," WorkingForChange, May 4, 2007.