The Gift That Keeps on Giving

By PAUL GRAY/

The Republican presidential task force, a fund-raising arm of the G.O.P., has been sending out $25 checks to nearly 700,000 Americans. All the recipients have to do is endorse them and deposit them in their banks. However, there is a tiny little catch, as an accompanying letter explains. The deposited check gives the task force the right to withdraw $12.50 a month from the individual's account for what it calls candidate escrow funding. Lucky recipients of the checks are allowed to exit the program after two payments have been extracted -- there goes the $25 -- but they are encouraged to remain participants and painlessly, perhaps endlessly, go on contributing $12.50 a month to the G.O.P.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen