The Bush administration spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from its health and welfare budget to stage presidential events around the country last year - most of which coincided with campaign appearances for Republican candidates.

A report released Friday by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, identified 15 trips where the White House asked the Department of Health and Human Services to pick up the tab.

Agreements reached between the White House and HHS allowed for charges totaling about $523,000. So far, the White House has sent HHS bills for eight of the 15 trips totaling just over $250,000. The GAO could not find invoices or other records to explain specifically how the money was spent.

The events were staged on a range of topics that HHS handles: bioterrorism, welfare, fitness, Medicare and prescription drugs.

The GAO found that nine of the 15 coincided with political events for Republicans, including gubernatorial campaigns for Scott McCallum in Wisconsin, Bob Taft in Ohio, Jeb Bush, the president's brother, in Florida, and Mark Sanford in South Carolina.

When the president travels for both official and campaign business, taxpayers generally share the cost with campaign committees.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who requested the report, said an agency charged with helping the sick and the poor should not be indirectly funding politics.

"No one challenges that the president should travel whenever and wherever he wants," Rangel said in a statement. "But if the goal of the trip is partisan politics, then he should charge the cost to his campaign committee, not the taxpayer." Fourteen of the 15 events were in 2002 before the November election; one was in January of this year.

HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said the taxpayers were in no way funding politics.

Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press

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