Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today along with my colleague from Missouri, Senator Blunt, to offer a couple of amendments that have been filed and that I hope we get an opportunity to vote on before this process concludes. If you look at the base Democratic budget that has been put before us, it has large tax increases in it; in fact, up to $1.5 trillion in new taxes. What we would attempt to do is to ensure that those taxes, higher taxes, do not come by eliminating or capping the Federal tax deduction for charitable giving. We have tens of millions of Americans mired in poverty, and government budgets are more constrained than ever before and what fills that gap is the charitable giving. It is the generosity of people around this country who keep organizations going that are providing these essential and basic functions for many Americans. In fact, in 2011, Americans gave nearly $300 billion to support charitable causes. This generosity not only helps to feed the hungry and clothe the needy, it has a real budgetary impact because this is an instance where the private sector is fulfilling a need that would otherwise have to be met by government spending. Unfortunately, as we know, the White House has proposed limiting the value of itemized deductions for those earning above $200,000 for singles, and $250,000 for married couples to 28 percent. Previous estimates were that this proposal would reduce charitable donations by up to $5.6 billion a year.…”