A new website is urging “Americans who have the means” to donate their Bush tax cuts to a group of charities.
The site, known as GiveItBackForJobs, was created by a group of professors from Yale and Cornell. It encourages visitors to “calculate, pledge and donate your tax cut.” It includes a tax cut calculator in which users can enter their adjusted gross income to calculate the “magnitude” of their tax cut. There are also links to five suggested charities, including Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, the Children’s Aid Society, the Nurse Family partnership, and an option to “choose your own charity.”
The site urges the well-heeled to part with some of the money they will receive from the recently extended Bush-era tax cuts to these and other charitable groups, and notes that the donation would still be tax deductible.
“America’s shared prosperity is under threat. Even as the Great Recession devastates the American middle class, the wealthy continue to prosper,” said the site’s home page. “The tax cut deal, while perhaps the best the President could get, will not end this crisis of American democracy. It does too little to help the middle class. And it expects too little support from those who can afford to give the most. Ordinary citizens can, by acting together to create a shadow fiscal policy, correct this failure of government and set the country moving toward a just prosperity.”
The site urges users to donate to “organizations that promote fairness, economic growth, and a vibrant middle class.”
“Such joint action by wealthy visitors to this site will begin to replicate good government policy, outside the government and free from the grip of obstructionists within it,” said the site’s founders. “Because contributions to all of the selected charities are tax deductible, donations made through this site draft the government as a partner in funding the projects that they support. We can, in this way, begin to redeem candidate Obama’s promise that ‘we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’”
3 Comments
Since most economists agree that tax cuts to the already wealthy are not generating jobs nor boosting the economy, you will have to come up with another argument.
The term, "Bush tax cuts", are also political talking points. President Obama extended those tax cuts into the next two years and he should be getting the credit for doing it.
Bush got these tax cuts under nefarious conditions that had forced him to do them with an expiration date, and like eggs gone bad, so have these cuts. Tax cuts during two active WARS and a sinking job market helped create huge deficits along with reckless financial market deregulations that further strangled our economy's health.
This article is indicative of our no-longer fair and balanced media flaunting their power to muddy the waters and cause further red herring subjects to come to bear rather than facing real issues and real solutions.
Posted by: NiteOwlett | January 6, 2011 12:47 PM
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I applaud the professors for their idea but take exception to the sentence referring to the "money they will receive" in reference to the "wealthy" taxpayers. It is about time we all recognized that unlike certain investment bankers, brokerage firms, insurance companies, and politicians, no money is being "received". Money earned (a hard concept from many liberals to grasp) is being retained and hopefully business people will feel confident enough in the economic situation to use that money to expand--i.e. hire people and buy things. If there is enough to give to a worthwhile charity of their choice, by all means encourage that as well.
Posted by: Sickofchange | January 4, 2011 11:40 AM
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The common misconception here is that anyone will "receive from the recently extened Bushe-era tax cuts." We The People are not receiving anything. The federal government is TAKING LESS.
Posted by: gn75kahs | January 4, 2011 11:20 AM
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