Conservatives love to complain about the misuse of public funds for ACORN community organization programs before the election, especially with the specter of the 2010 census and redistricting hanging over the discussion.  Somehow a very similar situation happening now with the GIVE Act has gotten less attention, even though it comes on the heels of a questionable tax decision that casts a light of hypocrisy on the whole situation.  At least the ACORN power play is understandable – the GIVE Act, and its forerunners, is a mistake compounded upon another mistake upon another, making it much more of an affront to the taxpayers victimized by the program. 

The problem started when the current administration lowered the tax deduction for charitable giving.  The idea was to tax the rich, of course, since they are the vast majority of charitable givers, especially in raw volume.  However, the elimination did not hurt businesses in the crossfire like eliminating other write-offs would have; rather, it hurt actual charities who foresaw a significant amount of their total income being taken by the federal government instead of being used for to its original purpose.  In trying to fight for the poor, our leaders have cut off their lifelines.

And for what?*  Where have these ill-gotten tax revenues gone?  Given the financial crunch faced by charities across the country, the beneficiary of the government’s revenues had better be at least as useful to society as those food pantries and relief organizations, among others.  No such luck, though; the money expands AmeriCorps and other similar programs.  Not only are taxpayers forced to fund these service organizations, but they are being forced to give in a higher proportion to the incredibly incompetent and politically motivated AmeriCorps projects.  Many charities help low-income kids and failing schools with a shot in the arm of helpful young people, but few indoctrinate the volunteers and ostracize dissidents as well or as often as AmeriCorps – which must have made it the obvious choice to lawmakers.

I understand the Robin Hood mentality of Democratic legislators, I think most of them honestly feel that they are doing a necessary thing in taking from one group of people in order to give to another (their constituents).  However, this sham has brought out the worst in redistributive politics.  Taxpaying citizens are being prevented from giving to charities by the government taking your money… to give to worse charities.  Why?  Credit.  Instead of letting the tax breaks and the market support charitable giving, as it had been doing, lawmakers can now say that they gave the money to support AmeriCorps and others.   Those who complain about the tax hike must just not be charitable people, otherwise they’d understand…

We can whine and moan about ACORN all we want as 2010 grows nearer and nearer, but for a group of people so temperamental about taxation, conservatives have relatively  dropped the ball on allowing this to go through without too much heat.  Sure, Michelle Bachman spoke against it, but she fights every battle as if her life depended on it.  I, too, fear the games that are going to be played with the census data and how the battle lines will be unfairly drawn against Republicans in swing districts going forward.  But, we need to remember to separate the means from the ends – we want to elect more conservatives to fight for issues like this one.  Here and now, in 2009, Congress and the President are taking our money away from our charities of choice and giving it to their terrible pet projects for their own reelection efforts.  It’s time we woke up and reminded people that two wrongs don’t make a right.

 *Puppet shows, it turns out (see citation #23 in the report).

Last 5 posts by Gideon D'Assandro

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• Social Conservatism Going Forward - July 5th, 2009