Obama, Charity, and 'Fairness'

Leave it to Barack Obama to justify a tax proposal that would significantly reduce the amounts going to charity -- on grounds the proposal is necessary for "fairness."
But the real reason is not "fairness." As Randy Shaw, the editor of BeyondChron (San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily), wrote earlier this week, there is a much different goal:

Even if we accept that charitable giving would decline by nearly $4 billion under Obama's plan, this critique addresses the wrong issue. The key question is whether the United States is better off having wealthy taxpayers pay more toward funding universal health care, or rather are free to give more billions to Harvard and Yale, more billions to elite art museums, and to otherwise spend tax dollars [?] in a way that does not address a pressing public priority.

And there you have it: the 'problem' is that taxpayers can benefit charities of their choice, rather than send the money to Washington to "address a pressing public priority" the government deems more important.

Shaw concluded that opponents of Obama's plan "miss the big picture" -- which is that

"Government, not private donors, should decide how tax dollars are allocated."

Implicit in this view is the conclusion that charitable contributions are actually the government's money -- and the government wants part of it back.

READ MORE

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

James Madison, "Father of the Constitution"
.