With Great Depression-like poverty and homelessness on the rise during this Christmas season 2012, organizations like the Salvation Army are working overtime to make up for the increase worsened by a bloated federal government well on its way to becoming a victim of its own gluttenous appetite. President Obama and Democrats are now in their 6th year of campaigning for one thing or another – the latest is an attempt to bully Republicans into raising taxes and lowering charitable deduction allowances on top wage earners. As if that will help anything.
Jimmy Margulies / The Record (click to view more cartoons by Margulies)
You’d think Obama would try to mask the animosity he has toward America’s successful. According to the president, the rich can save this country if they would repent of their greed and fork over the money stuffed between the mattresses in their devalued formerly million dollar homes. All the while, the carefully vetted crowds he rouses rant and cheer to the shrewdly crafted catch phrases obviously meant to rile them.
So let me throw this little piece of wisdom out there pro bono to educate the uniformed: Financial experts including Senate Budget Committee member John Thune, R-S.D., say raising taxes on job creators would only generate enough revenue to support the president’s spending habit for about a week. Surely something else is at play here.
Without a doubt, in these tough economic times, any policy decision that could harm charitable organizations, in turn would hurt the poor. Could it be Obama views charities as an obstacle to universal dependence on government? He shouldn’t, because the government has done a lousy job helping the poor thus far. It’s no secret our government has lost the war on poverty. According to the White House’s own website, billions of dollars were designated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus) to “alleviate the poverty made worse by the economic crisis.” The result? Drumroll please….
Poverty got worse.
According to the Washington Times somewhere around one-sixth of our population or 46.2 million people have descended into poverty and 2.5 million of them joined those ranks between 2010 and 2011. And now we hear murmurings that the administration is considering yet another stimulus funded by none other than those repugnant rich people Progressives love to hate (unless their last name is Gates, Buffett, Gore, Clinton, Kennedy, Kerry, or liberal Hollywood stars).
Oh, the unabashed hypocrisy of those who label the rich as “greedy” yet believe it morally justifiable to take someone else’s hard earned money to redistribute according to their own freakish fancy.
The bottom line here is raising taxes on the successful and tinkering with charitable contributions deductions means less money for organizations — which actually do something to help the poor. I guess that’s how liberals define tough love.
Whatever the case, the Salvation Army needs our help. According to CBS News in Minnesota, Salvation Army has received a record number of requests for assistance from families this year. Many of these families will receive much needed food, toys, money and other needs, thanks to the army’s red kettles and a new nationwide “Fill the Truck” campaign co-sponsored by another organization liberals hate: non-unionized Wal-Mart.
I challenge you to do what I’m doing this year to aid their cause by setting aside all the money I would have spent on my liberal friends who think helping the poor is always done with other people’s money. I’m simply putting their words into action by redistributing the money I would have spent on them – to the Salvation Army.
Susan Stamper Brown is an opinion page columnist who writes about politics, the military, the economy and culture. Email Susan at writestamper@gmail.com or her website at susanstamperbrown.com.
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