The Working File

The President’s Director of the Office of management and Budget defends the proposal to reduce the tax deduction on on charitable contributions with the following:

Third, there’s a question of fairness. Non-profits play a critical role in our society (indeed, I have worked at several of them in the past). But let’s look at how the tax code treats two different contributors to a non-profit. If you’re a teacher making $50,000 a year and decide to donate $1,000 to the Red Cross or United Way, you enjoy a tax break of $150. If you are Warren Buffet or Bill Gates and you make that same donation, you get a $350 deduction – more than twice the break as the teacher.
This proposal walks that difference back some of the way – it would limit the tax benefit for Buffet or Gates to $280. In other words, we are not eliminating the deduction – just reducing it to 28 percent (or $280 on the hypothetical $1,000 contribution) for the 5 percent of families at the very top of the income distribution. That is the same tax benefit that they would have enjoyed at the end of the Reagan Administration.

h/t Stuart Buck

First, this constant reference to Gates, Buffet, and other enormously wealthy people as an excuse for raising taxes on people making $250k is obscene. Does anybody buy it? If so, they are either wilfully giving in to envy or they just have no concept of money. Earning $250k is very, very good. But it is in a completely different universe from the Buffets and Gates of this world. Indeed, people making $250-400k have more in common economically with those making $50k than with those men.

Second, notice the disengagement of fairness so that it only applies in one direction. The Director says it is unfair that if somebody making $50k only gets a tax break of $150 for the same $1,000 contribution made by Buffet or Gates that gets a $350 deduction. This ignores, of course, that one pays only $150 in taxes on that $1,000 while the other pays $350. That, apparently, has no effect on fairness, according to Obama.

What is even more chilling, however, is the effect this is meant to have on private donations and private charity. Remember that that conservatives give more to charity than do liberals.  Now, discount this as from the American Spectator if you wish, but it is reporting that the program is designed, in part, to force charitable organizations to follow the wishes of the government, not of private donors.

According to a Senate Democrat aide, who has been briefed on the federal fund to offset charitable losses, the government funds would come with strings attached. “If, say, a Catholic hospital sought and received those funds, it would be required to adhere to federal polices on issues like abortion. Or the hospital could simply not seek the funds to make up the difference,” says the aide.

Do you think this effect will not happen because the Catholic Church would stand firm, then look to Massachusetts, where the Catholic health insurance plan has sought approval to take part in that state’s version of socialized healthcare, and has apparently agreed to cooperate directly with those who provide abortions. As reported in the Boston Globe:

At least one board member expressed concerns about the proposed Caritas-linked venture, called Commonwealth Family Health Plan, because Caritas, a six-hospital network affiliated with the Boston Archdiocese, does not perform abortions.
“How will our female members be provided these reproductive services?” said member Nancy Turnbull, an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Those are not services Caritas provides.”
In response, Caritas and Centene issued a joint statement late yesterday that said the new venture “will contract with providers, both in and out of the Caritas network, to ensure access to all services required by the authority, including confidential family planning services.

Either the Caritas statement is mean to be misleading, in that it responds to an inquiry on abortion with doublespeak about something else, or, in fact, Caritas will help women get abortions in order to qualify for government cash.
If so, is there a reason to donate to a Catholic charity?
Oh, and I almost forgot:
Well played, Catholics for Obama.