You Think Charitable Giving is Down Now...

We've seen our giving decline in recent years. Most notably, in recent months, the economy in our area has had a negative affect on our giving revenue. In fact, with staff costs increasing and revenue decreasing, we recently had to endure, as Mark Beeson so ably wrote it, a Horrible Difficult Day. Probably one of the top 5 worst days of my life. It really was a horrible, difficult day.

Well, if the current economic downturn hasn't hurt charitable giving enough, I'm wondering how what I'm reading about here, here, and here will affect charitable giving. Would these proposed changes in the deductability of charitable giving coupled with an increase in taxes have an affect on charitable contributions? Would it have an affect on GCC's contributions? Should we be considering the possibility that we may receive less in charitable giving over the next few years?

An ABC News article said this:

'The administration is attempting to redirect vast sums of money from businesses and wealthier individuals to those with lower incomes and enact ambitious and costly new programs for energy, education and health care. "

"Much of the spending is being done with money the government does not have, creating a $1.75 trillion deficit next year alone."

"Almost $1 trillion of the spending, $989 billion, comes from new taxes during the next 10 years. When the Bush administration's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, new tax increases will target families earning more than $250,000 a year. "

The government is trying to spend money it doesn't have. There is no Federal Money-Tree forest. The proposed solution is to raise taxes and eliminate deductions. If "wealthy" can be arbitrarily assigned to those earning more than $250,000/yr., it seems like "wealthy" could be arbitrarily adjusted to $100,000 or $50,000 if $250,000 doesn't produce enough revenue.

So, if the federal government is attempting to redirect "vast sums of money" from "wealthy" individuals to those with lower incomes, won't the "wealthy" just assume that the federal government is the charity that they're supporting? Isn't it logical that, at the least, they would give less to charity?