The Senate Finance Committee is hauling in representatives of the American Red Cross to grill them about the Katrina response and other matters.

First off, the Red Cross is not a government agency. It's a private 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. While the Finance Committee may have some jurisdiction regarding the organization's tax-exempt status, the reasons Chairman Grassley is holding the hearings have nothing to do with that status.

This is what I perceive to be a further demonization of the private, secular, charitable sector. I've posted about this before. Non-profits are held to higher accountability standards today than either the government or private industry.

What happened to the hearings into why FEMA failed so monumentally in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Grassley has often demonstrated his ability to be a principled - albeit conservative - politician. While I don't think there's anything wrong with investigating claims of wrongdoing, it doesn't seem that a Senate Committee is the body to be doing that.

This is what Grassley is looking for:

The Senate Finance Committee’s review of the Red Cross after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to a new policy that allows donors to direct how their money is to be spent.

The items Grassley requested include:

· Copies of all board minutes for the last five years.
· All materials provided to board members during the last five years.
· All communications between board members and the president and CEO for the last five years.
· Copies of Evans’ severance package or proposed severance package.
· Copies of Internal Revenue Service filings.

Grassley also said he wants explanations of complaints about the agency’s poor working relationship with leaders of local charities, as well as detailed information about its spending practices, including spending for tsunami relief and Katrina relief.

Golly Chuck, overreach much?

OK, I can understand the "looking out for the donors" perspective to an extent, but wouldn't looking out for the taxpayer be more in line with the charge of the Senate Finance Committee? Virtually everyone pays taxes by law to keep government running, but far fewer donate to the American Red Cross, and do so by choice when they do. From the Committee's own web page on its jurisdiction (citing Senate Standing Rule XXV):

Committee on Finance, to which committee shall be referred all proposed legislation, messages, petitions, memorials, and other matters relating to the following subjects:
1. Bonded debt of the United States, except as provided in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
2. Customs, collection districts, and ports of entry and delivery.
3. Deposit of public moneys.
4. General revenue sharing.
5. Health programs under the Social Security Act and health programs financed by a specific tax or trust fund.
6. National social security.
7. Reciprocal trade agreements.
8. Revenue measures generally, except as provided in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
9. Revenue measures relating to the insular possessions.
10. Tariffs and import quotas, and matters related thereto.
11. Transportation of dutiable goods.

The page does go on to list federal departments and agencies over which the Committee has some jurisdiction and the IRS is included in the very long list. But I repeat: this committee investigating a private, non-profit entity does not appear to be within its jurisdiction. If Grassley is so concerned, he could instruct the IRS or a federal agency to investigate. If there is corruption at the Red Cross, let the Justice Department investigate. If there's mismanagement but no criminal activity, that's a matter for the organization's Board of Governors.

Why isn't Grassley instead investigating how taxpayer money was spent or misspent by government agencies? What happened to the Republican party that is allegedly the taxpayers' best friend?

Could Grassley's overreaching possibly have anything to do with Grover Norquist, the Godfather (or "field marshal", depending on who you ask) of the current Republican philosophy of "starving government till it can be drowned in a bathtub" whose logical conclusions were so tragically brought to life in late August and early September? Norquist runs a so-called "taxpayer rights" organization named Americans for Tax Reform. Where is he now when taxpayer dollars - far more than private donor dollars - were so horrendously abused?

This hyped-up witch hunt at a private non-profit organization seems little more than a distraction tactic to draw attention away from the drowning of New Orleans and my tax money that was wasted on FEMA in that natural disaster.

If Grassley wants to investigate something, how about private for-profit no-bid contractors losing billions of dollars worth of taxpayer money in supplies and equipment in Iraq?

Since I don't donate to the Red Cross as I do to other charities, but I do pay taxes, that's where I want my Senate Committees focussing their energies and resources.