My wife -- thank her tolerance -- has been coping with my ranting for years now. I guess I have to start developing a louder voice. Hence, my first diary.
Most of my ranting is of the "Don't people see what's happening?!?" variety, which either makes me look like a prescient sage or a paranoid lunatic. Again, I thank my wife for her tolerance.
My point concerns H.R. 3, the "No Taxpayer Money for Abortion Act." I was listening to NPR yesterday, and they had a couple of Democratic congresspeople on who blathered about how this may allow alcohol deductions for business lunches to no longer be deductible, or business trips to Vegas, because folks in Congress may deem drinking or gambling immoral.
Get a clue, please?
Here is where things are going, it seems apparent to me:
The House has just deemed that not taxing certain money is equivalent to government funding. That is, not taxing health insurance is identical to funding health insurance. That not taxing medical expenses is identical to funding medical procedures.
It then follows that any and all tax deductions will also be considered government funding.
Aren't charitable donations tax deductible?
The next logical step on this path -- indeed, the next step that seems almost necessary for this line reasoning to hold any consistency -- is that any charitable deductions to any not-for-profit organizations that provide abortion cannot be tax deductible.
To me, to not come to that conclusion is logically inconceivable.
That is what the Democrats should be yelling from the rooftops.
Now, if one were to subscribe to a slippery slope, one could ask where does that end? Do we say that donations to the ACLU are anti-American, violate our nationalistic sense of morality, and therefore should not be tax-deductible? Or, how about donations to religious institutions? Would those violate the separation clause, leading to direct government funding of churches? Using the same reasoning, isn't granting tax deduction status to donations to religious institutions the "government funding of religion"?
Do folks really want to open this door, which can (and will, if my assessment of politics is in any way accurate) be misused by either party in power?
Other folks may have made this point: If they have, I haven't seen it. Regardless, it seems to me that it is a point that needs to be made much louder.