Philanthropy Journal Aug. 9, 2006 Flawed public policies underlie critical social problems, and nonprofits must raise their voice and push to fix those policies. In North Carolina, a nonprofit-led coalition that includes banks, corporations and trade groups has urged state lawmakers for two years to increase to $50 million from $3 million the annual appropriation to a state fund for affordable housing. In response, lawmakers agreed to one-time increases of $5 million last year and this year, and also agreed this year to spend nearly $11 million for affordable housing for the mentally ill.

From the Journal of Higher Ed: Whether earmarks — funds that a member of Congress directs to recipients without the peer-review process that federal agencies use to dole out most research funds — are dangerously and increasingly undermining peer review, or simply a way that legislators can look out for constituents, depends on who’s talking.

The House Joint Committee on Taxation has released a detailed summary of the Pension Bill. The charitable provisions begin on page 263.

According to BNA: Rep. Louise Slaughter is calling for an Internal Revenue Service investigation of a private family foundation established by Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt. She cites a recent Washington Post article that while Mike Leavitt alone has claimed about $1.2 million in tax write-offs since 2000, the foundation gave away only $49,000 in 2002 and $52,000 the next year, according to tax returns and other documents filed by the foundation.