The House votes to block earmarks to for-profit corporations.  Senator Inouye, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee criticized the ban.   The Project Kai e’e / UARC scandal at the University of Hawai’i and the Pacific Missile Range stems from earmarks abuses.   Leaving earmarks in place for nonprofits is also problematic because some of the same companies that are reaping benefits of defense earmarks have established nonprofits to receive certain federal monies, such as the special 8A contracts for native owned companies.  The nonprofits in these cases are not the same as tax-exempt, charitable organizations serving the public good.  They are simply nonprofit corporations that function to funnel federal contracts.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11earmark.html?pagewanted=all

Leaders in House Block Earmarks to Corporations

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: March 10, 2010

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders on Wednesday banned budget earmarks to private industry, ending a practice that has steered billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to companies and set off corruption scandals.

The ban is the most forceful step yet in a three-year effort in Congress to curb abuses in the use of earmarks, which allow individual lawmakers to award financing for pet projects to groups and businesses, many of them campaign donors.

But House Republicans, in a quick round of political one-upmanship, tried to outmaneuver Democrats by calling for a ban on earmarks across the board, not just to for-profit companies. Republicans, who expect an intra-party vote on the issue Thursday, called earmarks “a s