July 17, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
As the debate heats up about how America will pay for proposed changes in the health-care system, a blog writer for Atlantic magazine says lawmakers should reconsider their opposition to President Obama’s plan to reduce the charitable-tax deduction for wealthy people to support health fixes.
“I realize that reducing ‘charitable giving’ sounds like a horrible and miserly thing to do. (And it will definitely curtail giving, if not by as much as critics say. Lowering the deduction for gifts necessarily reduces the incentive to give.) But as much as I like the idea of being horrible and miserly, I don’t think the consequences will be dire,” writes Conor Clarke.
One reason he believes this is because charitable giving doesn’t always have a social benefit and suggests that some philanthropy may not deserve a tax break.
“Of course, I confess that it would be difficult to arrive at a broad consensus on what private donations count as socially beneficial,” he writes. “But, fortunately, there is already a mechanism for making consensus decisions about what is socially optimal: Democracy! If we’d rather use this money to fund health-care reform, there’s no reason to be ashamed.”
