Mr. Bush, one of few governors who actively directed state agencies to finance religious programs, made expanding charitable choice a priority.

Now we're in our Phase 2 approach, which is tending directly to charitable choice.

Education, the second most popular charitable choice ($18.81 billion), depends upon another obvious category of membership: alumni.

Officials say they hope that some provisions of charitable choice, like those to aid children of prisoners, could be included.

Many state welfare directors, Mr. Carlson-Thies said, are too overwhelmed with the changing system to pay much attention to charitable choice.

"Church people tell me they went and talked to their local or state welfare directors and they hadn't even heard of charitable choice," he said.

Critics of charitable choice say it is not possible to insure that the participants in church-run programs are not subject to proselytizing.

No national studies have assessed the effectiveness of religious programs paid for through charitable choice or how much money the states have channeled to religious groups.

Huckabee made sure that state agencies were compliant with charitable choice.

Even some conservatives have abandoned the White House on some aspects of "charitable choice."