Oama and Non Profits

Will Obama kill charities? Maybe. His drive to tax high income eraners and reduce tax deductions looks pretty ominous. Take a look at the analysis of Dick Morris.

OBAMA SOAKS THE RICH: CHURCHES, DAY CARE, HOMELESS SHELTERS

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on March 28, 2009

President Obama's glib assertion that his reduction in tax deductions will not reduce donations is absurd. His pathetic defense at his press conference - that he would still give a $100 dollar check to charity even if he only got $11 less of tax deduction from it was both disingenuous and beside the point.

And his comment that his reduced deduction would only impact one or two percent of the nation misses the point that it is these folks who are doing almost half of the donating.

In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, four million taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. They comprised 3% of the tax returns, made 31% of the income, but donated 44% of all charitable contributions. Together, they provided charity with $81 billion in that year.

Obama's plan will cost them $10 billion in extra taxes on the income they allocated to charitable donations. How can the president be so glibly certain that they will not curtail their charitable contributions by a like amount or even more?

Imagine all the harm Obama's program will cause. Churches will be hit most hard. They account for the largest share of charitable donations, but universities, disease research, hospitals, soup kitchens, and cultural institutions will also be hard hit. So will international relief efforts that funnel aid abroad through churches or directly.

It is totally dishonest for Obama to pretend that his curtailment of these deductions won't hurt the poor. It will most directly impact them since most of the charities Obama is hurting focus on helping the impoverished.

This proposal is not about saving money. It is about controlling it. By, in effect, transferring at least $11 billion a year from private philanthropy to government spending, Obama empowers the public sector at the expense of the voluntary one.

President Obama's recommended reduction in the tax deduction for charitable giving reflects his fundamental belief that only the government can or should help the poor. He wants to keep the impoverished directly dependent on the government - and the Democratic Party - for their daily bread.

The voluntary sector has always been the backbone of compassion in the United States. Our charitable donations dwarf those of any other country. And our system of tax deductions for giving permits us to decide what charities are worthy of our generosity - a decision Obama will transfer to the politicians under his program.

Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!

The Palin Paranoids Among Us

If you are unaware of how paranoid some people are toward people like us, read this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It is shocking to see that the author is a full professor and that the Inquirer would allow her to write such evil attacks on Palin and other Christians as well as almost everyone who lives in Rural Western America.

I suppose the lady who wrote the article thinks she is helping Obama's campaign but these hit pieces surely turn off almost everyone who has a rational bone in his/her body. Take a look at this angry bit of paranoid accusations with no facts to support it.

It has been years since groups such as the Montana Militia, the Posse Comitatus and the Sagebrush Rebels, and individuals such as Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski have made us wonder why so many "angry white men" populated our rural regions. Many of us have forgotten the threat once posed by domestic terrorists and instead have turned our attention to foreign terrorists. But we should never forget that in the late 20th century, ultra-Christian, antistatist and white-supremacist groups flourished in the states of the Pacific Northwest - called by many the "Great White Northwest" - the very region that Sarah Palin and her family call home.

Demographics most basically define this geographic region. In the six states that make up the Pacific Northwest - Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska - only six counties are more than 5 percent African American.

Although home to tens of thousands of native peoples, Alaska is not much different in terms of diversity from the other states of the region... Wasilla, where Sarah Palin was mayor, makes the census' list of the top 10 Alaskan communities with the largest number of African Americans because they make up a full 1 percent of the population. Rough calculations suggest that 65 blacks lived in the town.

But the region also must be defined by its history of intolerance, resentment, antistatism and violence. Appearing in the region in the 1980s and 1990s were some of the most notorious "hate radicals" of our time: militia groups, survivalists, Identity Christians, secessionists, white supremacists and others.

So, everyone in those six western states is a racist, radical with intolerant hatred for anyone different from the? WOW! That is high level, brilliant thinking from a professor who obviously got her job through merit and is not a token female.

I never cease to be shocked by the ignorance, hatred, fear and intolerance of such people who sit in the seats of power.

When I was on the doctoral committee of Margaret Jopheson Rinck I was barely able to stop a movement by radical feminists to kick her out of the doctoral program. The rationale was she could not be objective because she was a Christian. A few years after that she was honored for being a great teacher at U.C. when the facts were the opposite.

We who believe in Christ must stick together and support each other because the fear, hatred and evil intentions of many people are real.

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