Not at all. Taking away a tax deduction is equivalent to raising taxes, and will do absolutely nothing to decrease taxes for anyone. Now, if you wanted to propose a bill that eliminates a tax deduction and simultaneously lowers the tax rate to keep it revenue-neutral, then at that point you could argue for the benefits of that tax cut. But a tax increase in any form defaults to becoming more revenue, and tax cuts occur separately. (I'd love to see those two things inherently connected by law, but that hasn't happened.)

Also, if you actually proposed that bill, opponents of it would reasonably ask, of all the sources you might use to fund your tax cut, why you decided to start by raiding charitable donations instead of a thousand different items in the "expenses" column. Do you really believe that, of all the possible ways to fund a tax cut, the most important would be to target charitable giving?

> Further, your sidestepping the crap argument.

If you think some charities shouldn't receive 501(c)3 status, I'd agree, and I'd argue for stricter review processes. If you think all charities shouldn't, then I invite you to make that argument to the general public and see how they respond to it.

The burden (the cost source of the tax) exists. How the burden is served can leverage individual self-interest to create, maintain, or change behavior (tax deducations). A change in available cost sharing tactics (taking advantage of a burden reduction as it exists or does not) is not a change in the burden. It is not the same as raising taxes (ie tax rate).

I am not interested in stepping into how terminology between rates and fixed fees is confused across a multitude of localities.

If you did absolutely nothing else it would reduce government debt. Which reduces future taxes.

I understand your position, and I'd actually favor a tax structure that has a much lower rate and almost no deductions (making everyone's taxes far simpler than even the one-page 1040-EZ, and completely automatic). That would leave people more than enough for charitable giving and many other things. But unless that comes as a package deal eliminating all deductions and lowering taxes accordingly, I wouldn't support eliminating a tax deduction for charitable giving while leaving the myriad other deductions.

Of course our GDP and tax rates has grown over time, but not nearly as quickly as debt interest. So, without doing excessive analysis we would probably have a national surplus if literally nothing else changed in the tax code or spending.

Granted, arguments about lowered GDP and other knock on effects are reasonable. But, suggesting no long term tax breaks seems unlikely.