John Tierney: “I rise today to add a word of caution to my colleagues about this legislation and to support the Democratic substitute.…”

“I rise today to add a word of caution to my colleagues about this legislation and to support the Democratic substitute. Everybody in this body supposedly supports charities and the important work that they do. At the same time, however, the Federal Government is currently projected to run the largest deficits in history. The need for assistance in education and health care and housing among low and moderate income Americans is great, and unfortunately, there is little evidence that this bill is going to do anything to address those needs. I fear that larger deficits are going to occur and the result of this bill is going to serve as an excuse to cut programs already inadequately funded. At a minimum, this bill should contain an offset. In analysis of a similar bill that is in the Senate, the Congressional Research Service report estimated that the charitable deduction for nonitemizers would yield only 12 cents of additional giving for every dollar of revenue lost to the Treasury, 12 cents. CRS concluded that the vast majority of the cost of the deduction would go to subsidizing existing donations rather than generating new gifts. The charitable donations generated by this bill will support many good causes, but that same Budget and Policy Priorities report indicated that no more than 10 percent of all charitable giving will directly benefit the poor.”