Obama and Charity

"What is going to become of our charities if almost 33% of it dries up simply because of Washington's policies?"
 
Doesn't the 'general welfare' clause of the Constitution mean that the Federal government is empowered to dole out charity? James Madison, the principle author of the Constitution, said that the welfare clause is "qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." [emphasis added]

"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
President Franklin Pierce's 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill

There are dozens of direct references to charity and other welfare by the Founders. And it is clear from the hundreds of other references they made about the meaning of this or that word or clause of the Constitution exactly what was intended when they wrote it. But one thing is undeniably clear about Americans: they are willing to see the 'spirit of the law' in the letter of the law, and usually it is not a 'spirit' put there, nor accepted, by the people who gave it to us.

"Until the New Deal era [charity] was known not to be an enumerated power nor one reasonably implied by the 'necessary and proper' clause and therefore considered unconstitutional. Yet around the time of the New Deal, government began overlooking this clear unconstitutionality" Is Welfare Unconstitutional?

 "The fiscal year 2013 White House budget specifies that the federal tax deduction for charitable contributions be reduced to a maximum of 28% for married couples with income over $250,000, and single individuals with incomes over $200,000." source

 But that White House policy is harmful. In 2009, 89% percent of American households gave an average of $1,620 to charity annually; it was $308 billion in 2008, accounting for 2.2 percent of our GNP), higher than any other country in the world. "This clearly shows America does not have a charity problem--and shows that Americans are fully capable of giving away their own money to good causes." source

Now compare that to the FY2013 Budget, in which we clearly see that Mr. Obama would prefer the Federal government be the major contributor to the health and welfare of Americans:

"This budget would reduce the value of the charitable deduction for certain individuals, effectively subjecting them to pay taxes on money that they give to charity instead of using it to benefit themselves. [G]iving by households with $200,000 or more in income would have decreased by $820 million in 2009 and by $2.43 billion in 2010 had the administration’s proposal been in effect." source [emphasis added]

"Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to nearly $3 billion in donations for victims' families, donations because of large-scale disasters were measured in millions--not billions....an unprecedented $7.37 billion in donations to disaster relief groups in 2005." source What is going to become of our charities if almost 33% of it dries up by 2015 simply because of Washington's policies?
  
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012