Could this be the reason for Obama's animosity to charity?

According to Richard Epstein:

As such, the [charitable deduction] device has three important advantages. First, this non-discretionary subsidy increases the total amount of charitable activity, without increasing the role of the government in the collection or distribution of funds. Second, it still requires charitable institutions to persuade some potential donors that their mission is worthy of private support, which can only be done if organizations have some form of private monitoring by charitable boards and other external watchdogs. Third, the rise of charitable organizations attracts the civil participation of a large number of people who receive no direct cash payment for their charitable efforts. Charities, in sum, reduce the control of government over the lives of ordinary individuals. People in need now have other places to look for assistance.

Hey, Rube! - Obama raises taxes on middle class. According to the Washington Examiner:

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office confirmed what we've been saying for years now: President Obama has broken his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. During his 2008 campaign, Obama promised Americans that he wouldn't raise taxes on anybody making less than $250,000 a year. Technically, he broke that pledge weeks after taking office, when he signed an increase in cigarette taxes, which fall disproportionately on those with lower incomes. Now, the CBO has released updated estimates showing that Obamacare's insurance mandate -- which the Supreme Court ruled to be a tax -- will hit millions of middle-class Americans. In its report, the CBO determined the mandate tax would cost 6 million Americans a total of $7 billion in 2016, with a minimum payment of $695 apiece. The annual cost will then average about $8 billion from 2017 through 2022. The health care law requires Americans either to purchase government-approved insurance or to pay a penalty. The CBO estimates 30 million will be uninsured by that year, but most will be exempted from the mandate because they are unauthorized immigrants, members of Indian tribes or don't earn enough income to file taxes, among other reasons. Among those who will have to pay a mandate penalty, 4.7 million will have incomes below 500 percent of the federal poverty level, according to the CBO, which is projected to be $60,000 for individuals and $123,000 for families of four by 2016. The tax penalty, according to the CBO, is "the greater of: a flat dollar amount per person that rises to $695 in 2016 and is indexed by inflation thereafter (the penalty for children will be half that amount and an overall cap will apply to family payments); or a percentage of the household's income that rises to 2.5 percent for 2016 and subsequent years (also subject to a cap)."

Well, it's not like the government was going to do this with bake sales:

Apart from the millions of middle-class tax payers that Obama's new tax laws would eventually apply to...

...the Buffet Rule would apply to only 400 individuals.

And, as an added bonus, that would make it an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

From the Fiscal Times:

However, most of those are on the lower end of that top level of income. The real revenue opportunity comes with the wealthiest of Americans, where a surtax would confiscate much larger amounts of capital. Bloomberg’s Hans Nichaols reported this week that the Buffett Rule actually hopes to target just 400 earners in the nation. That makes this look a lot less like a normal tax policy and a lot more like an attack on specific Americans as a lever to seize their property in service to a President who has openly waged class warfare for the last eight months.

The Buffett Rule tax increase hawked by President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress uses taxation power to target a small group of individuals for confiscation for no better purpose than to fit their political aspirations. The real purpose targets one individual in particular who might keep Obama from winning a second term in office.


This abuse of power harks back to one of the more curious relics found in our Constitution, which prohibits Congress from passing a “Bill of Attainder.” Article 1, Section 9 prevents any individual or group from being condemned for crimes and having their property seized without all the muss and fuss of trials, juries, and even evidence.

Of course, Obama couches the Buffett Rule tax in fiscal terms. We need to have everyone pay their fair share of taxes, the President has argued, and why should a billionaire like Warren Buffett pay a lower rate on his income than his secretary? That sounds reasonable to the ill-informed, but Buffett pays a lower rate – as do many of the wealthier income earners – because Buffett derives his income from risk-based activities in investments, rather than as employment salary.

Congress has long treated capital-gains income differently than salary income in order to incentivize the risk-taking that leads to innovation and growth. Had Buffett’s secretary earned her income as capital gains, she would have access to the same tax rates as her boss does.

Unconstitutional, ineffective and abusive...that's right in Obama's wheel-house.