Eggs Benedict Arnold: breakfast reading can cause gagging.

Some nonprofit sector leaders are working under the delusion that they have a partner in Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley, who heads the Senate Finance Committee, has been pushing for what he considers reforms and greater accountability in the nonprofit world.

Independent Sector put together some of the nonprofit world's great minds in an attempt to work with Congress to blunt any draconian legislation that Grassley and his posse might consider. After all, there's a massive federal debt that he and his pals voted for and now need to cover.

If anyone ever had any doubt that Grassley's gambit is all about the money and not true reform, here's something he said recently regarding recommendations from the Joint Committee on Taxation OCT) that was quoted in The Bureau of National Affairs (BNA).

"The recommendations on charities build and expand on the Finance Committee's bipartisan work and strengthen the case for reform. These recommendations should help to remove the rose colored glasses that a lot of people use to view tax-exempt organizations."

He also took on those who dared to push forward an agenda. "High-priced lobbyists won't be able to eat their Eggs Benedict when they see this report. Its suggestions for possible ways to plug big leaks in tax compliance are important as we roll up our sleeves to deal with the deficit and address tax reform," he said, according to BNA.

Those must not be the lobbyists who are involved with political action committees that dumped $2.25 million into Grassley's campaign coffers during 2003 and 2004, according to the Federal Election Commission and opensecrets.org. Could the $364,444 in contributions to Grassley reported from the Washington, D.C. area be from, or because of, lobbyists?

All of that money could buy a lot of hungry kids a couple of truckloads of Eggs Benedict, or plain milk.

Has the sector had a few scandals? Sure. There isn't an official scoreboard, but perhaps there should be a count of elected officials who were either forced to resign or were prosecuted. The odds are pretty good there are more of them in a 10-year period than nonprofit executives who suffered the same fate. Elected officials always point to the decades-old United Way scandal, which was one man and has been cleaned up. When was the last time Grassley mentioned why Newt Gingrich, and his selected but not installed successor were forced out of Congress when discussing reforms?

That same JCT report highlighted roughly $311 billion of taxes being skirted in the for-profit community. Shouldn't the under-staffed Internal Revenue Service be unleashed on that known cash, rather than squeezing pennies from homeless kids?

The nonprofit sector is already more regulated than any other sector of the economy. There is transparency for all of the world to see. There isn't a merry-go-round of people nominated and backing out of positions, like there was the last time a Speaker of the House of Representatives was needed.