Wow! There is allot to ponder here. It seems both of you bring some provoking thought to the table here.

It is certainly true that God is the provider of all good things (which includes funding).

Your post has caused me to ponder the tension between the giver and the means in which the giver gives imparts the gift.

As for the issue of whether Congress wastes as much of the taxpayers’ money as churches: they probably do. That’s a separate issue, though, and Barr’s letter would be better directed to Waxman’s Government Reform Committee.

I’m going to break our disagreement into its constituent parts; I think that, once the facts are made clear, we’ll agree some things and disagree on others. There are two issues that are related to constitutionality: first, as a purely factual matter, there’s nothing unconstitutional about these investigations specifically, and there’s nothing unconstitutional about IRS or Senate oversight generally. Senate oversight is plenary: there’s virtually nothing that Grassley could do in discharging his oversight duties that could be found unconstitutional as a court. Similarly, the IRS would have to do a lot to step into unconstitutional terrain. As a lawyer w/ plenty of experience auditing churches and working w/ their CFOs, I can assure that the IRS isn’t even miles within that point. They’re – maybe – a light year from that point.

As a policy matter, I agree that it would be wrong for Grassley to single churches out, and would violate the spirit of the First Amendment if not the letter. However, he’s been very aggressive w/ non-profits in strikingly even-handed fashion. He’s gone after museums, conservation groups, supporting organizations, credit bureaus and hospitals – some class of NFP had to be next, so it may as well be churches.

Well, this is getting too long, so I’ll leave it at that. If we still disagree materially, so be it: smart & reasonable people can disagree about things like this, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been at odds with the CFO of a church!

My motivation is not to defend the ministries under scrutiny, but I am concerned that the bad behavior of these few will result in an erosion of church organization’s constitutional rights. There are too many critics out there who want to paint every church with the same brush and characterize every evangelical preacher as Elmer Gantry.

I am also skeptical of the efficacy of congressional hearings. They shed more heat than light and are little more than a bully pulpit for politicians who love to hear themselves talk.

If Grassley really wanted to fix something he could quietly compel Acting Commissioner Stiff and Director Lerner to let the dogs out.

Which do you think would be more intimidating to a televangelist? A close-up on C-Span, or a cadre of Revenue Agents here to seize your hard drives?

The notion that he’s circumventing the law is simply false.

The way NFP stuff seems to work w/ the IRS is that there’s some high-level prodding (either via Grassley or scandal) followed by either change of law/reg or enforcement. The IRS doesn’t have the resources to regulate ex ante, so someone else attacks ex post, and drives the IRS into action.

That said, why does it bother you that Grassley is looking into these organizations? It doesn’t seem clear to me why you’d defend organizations that clearly have been abusing their exemptions.