WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it paid a columnist at least $4,000 to plug the Bush administration's traditional family values agenda.
The disclosure HHS paid syndicated columnist Mike McManus about $4,000 to train marriage mentors in 2003 and 2004 comes after several other such revelations, the USA Today reported Friday.
Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher and conservative commentator Armstrong Williams both were paid, directly or indirectly by the administration, to promote its policies. None of them had disclosed their financial ties to the White House.
McManus was subcontracted by the Lewin Group, which had a contract to support community based programs "to form and sustain healthy marriages."
McManus' non-profit group, Marriage Savers, also is being paid $49,000 by a group that received an HHS grant to teach similar principles to unwed couples having children.
The McManus payments came a day after Bush called for an end to such payments.
