The battle over the proper role of the federal government has raged ever since the days of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
Jefferson was fearful of an overly powerful central government and Hamilton, ever the federalist, favored a strong federal government.
Hamilton believed that the average American was too ignorant to make decisions for himself.
He also knew that making the populous indebted to the federal government meant controlling it.
This, in my opinion, is what lurks behind Obama’s plan to reduce private giving in favor of government spending.
The left has always believed that a select few (liberal intellectual elites, of course) are best able to decide how Americans should help other Americans. It is the bedrock theory on which federal entitlement programs are based.
Disallowing full deductions for private charitable giving takes away the freedom of private citizens to choose how to spend their own money and gives it directly to the government, which, I don’t need to remind you, is now controlled by the left.
If Obama can take money from private charity (remember, the left doesn’t particularly dig the fact that much of private charity (33% in 2006) goes to religious organizations), he then gets to redistribute that money as he and Congress see fit.
This is a power grab, folks.
And class warfare at its most cynical.
At any given time in American society there is always an overwhelming majority of people who are not rich.
And it’s not difficult to get people who are struggling to loathe people who are doing well, however Machiavellian it may be.
The German propaganda machine did it with amazing alacrity in the ’30s as did Castro in the 60s and Chavez today.
The political reasoning behind the Robin Hood theory of taxation is quite simple:
Rich people, a tiny minority of voters, will not be happy about tax increases imposed on them, but the poor and the middle-class, the overwhelming majority of voters (no doubt experiencing more than a dash of envy), will love and embrace them.
Obama is perfectly willing to give you the shirt off my back, but isn’t it the very essence of freedom that control over who gets my shirt should remain vested solely in me?
Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats think they know better than you how you should spend your own hard-earned money in the service of others.
The cynical and condescending assumption that a few federal bureaucrats know better than I do what I should do with my money reminds me of a quote I heard long ago:
What are the odds that God whispered in your ear what I should do with my money?
Also Read This:
Will Obama’s Tax Plan Hurt Religious Groups
And These Related Posts:
Obama Supports Reduction in Charitable Deduction Allowance . . . AGAIN
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1 Double the Charitable Deduction to Spur the Economy // Feb 1, 2011 at 8:18 pm
[...] Obama and His Merry Men Favor Public Spending Over Private Charity [...]
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