[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 41 (Monday, March 9, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             CHARITABLE DEDUCTIONS AND GOVERNMENT SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, we have an organization in this 
country called the Independent Sector. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan 
coalition of charities, foundations, and corporate philanthropic 
programs collectively representing tens of thousands of charitable 
groups in every State across the Nation. The mission of this 
organization is to advance the common good by leading, strengthening, 
and mobilizing the nonprofit community.
  The reason that I bring this up tonight is that the way that the 
administration, through the budget, wants to help fund health care 
reform is they want to reduce the amount that people can deduct when 
they make charitable contributions. And this organization that 
represents the Volunteers of America, the Salvation Army, the Red 
Cross, all these organizations, says that if the legislation passes in 
the budget in its present form, they will lose $4 billion a year in 
charitable contributions because people won't be able to deduct the 
same amount that they've been deducting before when they make a 
contribution to these charities. And I think that's tragic because 
people who need help from the Salvation Army or the Red Cross or these 
other philanthropic organizations really need help, and if they can't 
get it from those organizations, the place they are going to go to try 
to get it is where? From the taxpayers, from their local trustee, their 
State government, their city government, or the Federal Government. So 
what we are going to see is a transfer of responsibility from these 
independent philanthropic organizations to these local government 
entities and the Federal Government if we start reducing the amount 
that people can deduct in charitable contributions. I think that's 
tragic.
  The Secretary of the Treasury, Geithner, appeared before the Senate 
this past week, and he was asked about this, and he said, well, he 
thinks there might be other ways that they could fund the health care 
changes in this country without dipping into the charitable 
contribution deductions. Well, the head of OMB indicated, I think, 
yesterday on Face the Nation that Mr. Geithner probably wasn't right, 
that once the American people see how this money is going to be used, 
they'll understand it.
  I don't believe that, Madam Speaker. I believe the American people, 
when they give money to a charity, want to make sure that that money is 
going to that charity and that they get their charitable deduction for 
that. If they don't get that charitable deduction, they're going to 
start cutting back on the money they give to charities, and the minute 
they start doing that, Madam Speaker, then you're going to see these 
charities start wanting for money because they won't be getting the 
money they have been getting in the past.
  These organizations have said collectively they are going to lose $4 
billion a year if the budget proposed by the administration and 
proposed by the House leadership and the Senate leadership, if that 
goes through. And it may go through tomorrow. Then these charities are 
not going to get that money, $4 billion in losses, and it's going to be 
borne by other institutions. And I submit to you it will be the local 
governments, the State governments, and probably the Federal 
Government. I think that's just dead wrong.
  I want to end up tonight by saying one more thing, Madam Speaker, to 
my colleagues back in their offices. We have been increasing the money 
supply, printing more money very rapidly, and we are indebting the 
people of this country to the tune of trillions of dollars. The 
Secretary of the Treasury is going to have another $3 trillion that 
he's going to have to print to give to financial institutions to keep 
them above water. The budget that we're talking about, the bailout bill 
that we're talking about, the stimulus package, all of those add up to 
trillions of dollars more in spending.
  If you look at this chart, you will see that the money supply in this 
country has been pretty level up through the year 2000, and then it 
starts going up like a rocket, and now it's going straight up. And what 
that means to the American people, and I hope the American people, if 
they happen to be paying attention, and I can't talk to them, I know, 
but if they happen to be paying attention, I hope they realize that the 
increase in the money supply is going to come directly to them 
eventually. It's going to affect them in higher taxes and higher costs 
of goods and services when they go to buy them. If you have more money 
in circulation, and we're looking at trillions of dollars more that's 
going to be printed, that money is going to be chasing fewer goods and 
services. What that means simply is if you go to buy a loaf of bread, 
it's going to cost more. If you buy a gallon of gas, it's going to cost 
more. If you buy electricity in your home, when you turn the switch on, 
it's going to cost more.
  So I would just like to say to my colleagues, we really need to do 
something about spending. We have got to say to the administration and 
our colleagues in the House and the Senate it's time to cut spending. 
We don't need to spend more. We don't need to spend these trillions of 
dollars. We ought to be cutting taxes instead of doing that to 
stimulate economic growth, and we need to make sure that the American 
people and the future generations of this country are not saddled with 
more debt and hyperinflation.
  There are so many things going on right now, Madam Speaker, that 
troubles me, it's not even funny. And it all comes down to spending 
more money and imposing more burden on the American taxpayers and the 
future of this country.

                          ____________________