SEN. GRASSLEY’S WITCH HUNT

SEN. GRASSLEY’S WITCH HUNT
By Bob Ward

Nov 18, 2007 - Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has given six
evangelical ministers one month to turnover all their financial
records to the Senate Finance Committee.

The reason for Grassley’s intrusion into the personal finances of
these ministers is that they are what he calls “lavish lifestyles” and
he publicly wonders whether they are using their tax-exempt status to
shield their sumptuous living.

According to media accounts, these gentlemen do live well. There are
reports of private jets, palatial homes and luxurious automobiles
including at least one Rolls-Royce which, the preacher says, does not
belong to him but is the property of the church.

This is a project the senator should promptly abandon. It is not the
business of a U.S. senator or the Federal government to worry about
how any individual spends money that belongs to him. If a minster is
paid an extravagant salary by the ministry he heads up, it is up to
people who manage the ministry, and the donors who support it, to do
something about it – not the United States government. If he is
defrauding his
employers in a way that violates a Federal statute, that is a matter
for the Justice Department, not the Senate Finance Committee.

If Grassley were investigating the organizations the preachers lead,
he would be on firmer ground. There are limits on political activity
and other rules an organization must observe to be considered non-
profit for tax purposes. But in this case, it is personal finances of
the preachers he is targeting – not the activities of the
organizations.

Is the senator prepared to introduce legislation making it unlawful
for a cleric to become wealthy?

All this, course, is on top of the fundamental irony of a United
States senator carping about someone else’s “lavish life style.” At
least the preachers get their money from people who voluntarily
donate. If the donors don’t like the way their money is used, they
are free to close their checkbooks. The taxpayers who support the
senator’s salary and generous bennies have no such option. The
senator’s money is obtained by force and coercion.

So until the senator himself is ready to subsist on a diet of honey
and locusts, how these individuals spend their own money is none of
his business.

And the whole project tacks too close to the First Amendment to be
tolerated.