A few weeks ago, I wrote about Senator Charles Grassley's plans to investigate the fund-raising and spending practices of several prominent televangelists.

Well it looks there's some foot-dragging going on. Four of the ministries in question did not turn over the information requested by Thursday's deadline.

Particularly egregious is the behavior of the ministry of Creflo Dollar, whose lawyer has told the Senate Finance Committee that it will have to subpoena to get the information it is seeking. That way, the lawyer says, the information can't be posted publicly.

Its abundance of resources and location on the Great Lakes have made Ontario an economic powerhouse. Canada's capital, Ottawa can be found there, as well as its largest city, Toronto, which is also Canada's financial hub. Seven of Ontario's eight largest companies are financial institutions, and Toronto is also the home of one of the largest stock exchanges in the world. When the Motley Fool took a look at stock investment opportunities in Ontario this past June, three of the companies they focused on were financial institutions: Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY), Manulife Financial Corp. (NYSE: MFC) and Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD). Considering the credit crunch and the weakness of the U.S. dollar, I thought it might be interesting to see how those companies are faring now.

The Royal Bank of Canada, also known as RBC Financial Group, is Canada's largest financial institution. It has 1,300 domestic locations and offices in 30 countries. In September, RBC's Gord Nixon won Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year award for 2007. More recently, RBC announced the acquisition of a Caribbean bank, and it was one of four Canadian banks affected by restructuring at VISA. With RBC's five-year earnings per share growth rate of 26.5% (better than the S&P 500), the consensus recommendation of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is to buy RBC, despite missing earnings expectations for the past two quarters. RBC's share price is near an all-time high on the NYSE, closing Thursday at $57.09 on the NYSE. RBC will release its next quarterly report on November 30.

Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman, who became a billionaire thanks to the firm's recent initial public offering, won't be able to stop the U.S. Congress from making his firms pay higher taxes particularly as the presidential election looms.

Legislation proposed by Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) would TRIPLE the amount of taxes that the New York-based company would pay annually. The company is arguing that the Baucus-Grassley bill raising taxes on private equity and hedge funds would deprive the government of revenue because it would discourage companies from going public.

Blackstone won't win too many friends on Capitol Hill with that argument since hedge funds already get a huge break from the IRS because they pay taxes at the 15% rate of partnerships instead of the 35% corporate tax rate. To many people and quite a few economists this just doesn't seem fair.

Politically speaking this also is a losing issue for Blackstone. Americans believe in the Horatio Alger myth that by hard work and luck anyone can become rich. The public, though, has little sympathy for people who climb their way to the top by cutting corners or getting breaks that they don't seem to deserve.

The Democrats in Congress are well attuned to this reality. For them, there is no better industry to target than hedge funds and private equity firms. To most Americans, the industry is mysterious and scary. What possible downside could they have in targeting the likes of Blackstone.