Indeed.
Those words come from the vice president for university relations at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Barbara-Jan Wilson, who is featured in this AP story about nonprofit managers who are concerned about President Obama’s proposed tax policy, which would limit deductibility for charitable contributions made by “the rich.”
I am mystified as to why Wilson and others are surprised that the president’s tax policy punishes achievement and wealth – which he promised to do while campaigning. What did they think “spread the wealth around” meant? While I share their alarm, I’m unable to generate any sympathy for them. My sympathy is for the people who contribute so much to our communities and who now find themselves the targets of this administration.
Many wealthy Americans weren’t shocked when Obama’s budget proposal called for raising their income taxes. But there was surprise — and some alarm — over a separate proposal to limit the deductions that couples earning more than $250,000 can claim for charitable gifts.
Under the plan, a donor in the highest tax bracket would save $280 on a $1,000 charitable deduction, instead of $396.
Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag, says the change wouldn’t occur until 2011, when the administration hopes a recovery will be under way, and there’s a chance the proposal will die in Congress. But many in the nonprofit world are uneasy.
“This is a time of tremendous anxiety in the nonprofit sector,” said Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy at City University of New York.
You get what you vote for, folks.
