Retain tax deduction for charitable donations

THE huge gap in the federal budget has led to another call to shrink the tax deduction for donations to nonprofit groups. The budget problem is real, and this page has called for cuts in military spending and entitlements, and for increases in some taxes. We take the problem seriously, but we draw the line at the charitable deduction.

The amount of charity in America is one of the things that distinguishes us from many other nations. The tax deduction is a way for government to favor giving without picking and choosing who pays whom. You may disapprove of the causes your neighbor supports and he may disapprove of yours. It is a free country.

It is also a going-broke country. The federal government is seriously short of money. But so are nonprofit organizations: social services, environmental groups, the arts, education, etc.

Take one example: the University of Washington. It is one of the most valuable institutions in the state — socially, intellectually and economically. The Legislature has just cut millions from its funding so it could have money to spend on other things. Because of that, the UW now jacks up undergraduate tuition by 20 percent in one year.

Imagine now that the federal government discourages affluent people from donating money to the UW.

Let's not do this. Especially not now.

The idea of cutting back the charitable deduction has been bubbling in the Obama administration from the beginning. In the spring of 2009 the idea was floated to lower the maximum value of the deduction from 35 cents on the dollar (the tax rate on top earners) to 28 cents.

Harvard Economist Martin Feldstein wrote in The Washington Post this proposal "would effectively transfer more than $7 billion a year from the nation's charitable institutions to the federal government."

Get the money from Afghanistan. Get it from the ethanol subsidy. The federal government should leave the nation's nonprofits alone.