Taxing Charitable Giving, That’s Stimulating!
I don’t get it. Obama - President Obama - in order to “stimulate” our economy wants to discourage charitable giving. He wants to slash the tax credit/deduction for charitable giving.
Let’s see. I give $10 to my church it generally goes to pay staff. That’s stimulating. I give $10 to the food bank, it goes to buy food for the unemployed or other folks too poor to buy food. That’s stimulating. I give $10 to a charity paying for treatment of a child with cancer, or pay the motel charges for the child’s parents. That’s stimulating. I give $10 to “Habitat for Humanity” to buy lumber to build a house for a homeless family. That’s stimulating. In every case, the $10 goes immdiately into the economy, and helps folks at the same time.
But Obama says “let’s stop that! Let’s tax that man $3 or $4 more in taxes, instead. So I decide to keep my $10 in my pocket. Next year, Obama gets $4. It goes into the government coffers. It gets appropriated for???? Well, let’s hope for the best. It gets awarded to some state for homeless shelters. 6 months later some state bureaucrat gets it. After “overhead”, $1 goes to pay to keep a public building (in my town, the National Guard Armory) open for overnight shelter of a homeles person. Huuurah!
Now what happened here? My $10 doesn’t help anyone I wanted to help. But my taxes on it eventually helped someone. I guess I feel good about that. I think. I don’t know.
But instead of $10 immediately stimulating our economy and immediately helping someone in my town, and supporting my local favorite charity, and making me feel good and kinda like I should give again next month …. well, two years from now my taxes put $1 into something good somewhere. I think. How should I know? Some bureaucrat somewhere made the decision to help the homeless (I hope it didn’t go to buy a new helicopter for Obama). So who got stimulated? I know I didn’t (emotionally). I just got discouraged and turned off to giving to help the poor. Can’t afford too many charitable acts anymore.
Oh, I know. The government got stimulated. Took in more taxes, and a couple of years later, got the credit for “being there” for all us poor (that includes me, since I lost my job in the “depressed” economy.And I got stimulated to love the welfare agency and the generous Democrats who always take care of us when we need a handout.
