|
June 11, 2002
ACTION ALERT
U.S. Senate Finance
Committee To Mark Up Charity Assistance Bill
Thursday
We have just been notified that, after much delay, the
Senate Finance Committee will mark up the bipartisan Charity Assistance,
Recovery & Empowerment (“CARE”) Act this Thursday morning. This important
measure, sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman (D-Ct) and Rick Santorum
(R-Pa) is a significant element of President Bush’s “faith-based
initiative” – an initiative designed to use a variety of federal laws &
policies to increase the resources and roles of America’s charitable
organizations in the good works they do.
The CARE Act primarily addresses the “resources” element of this
initiative through tax and spending provisions. It will spur new
individual contributions to charities by providing a tax deduction of up
to $800 per family to the millions of Americans who do not take itemized
deductions on their taxes. It will allow people to rollover their
Individual Retirement Account assets directly to charities without paying
a tax penalty. It will provide increased incentives for donations to
foodbanks, reduce the federal excise tax on charitable foundations and
raises the cap on how much a corporation can contribute to charity. The
CARE Act will help the working poor begin to build personal savings
accounts through tax credits for matching contributions by banks. Finally,
the CARE Act would increase the budget of the federal Social Service Block
Grant program, the primary source of federal grants to social welfare
charities, by more than one billion dollars over the next two years.
The CARE Act is endorsed by a broad array of religious and charitable
organizations (including U.J.C.), and while it sounds like something
everyone should support, the outcome in the Finance Committee is somewhat
uncertain. We know that some members of the Committee would rather
allocate the bill’s resources toward other budgetary issues.
Thus, we urge you to contact members of the Finance Committee today and
encourage them to support the CARE Act and its provisions as introduced.
Members are listed below; their e-mail addresses can be accessed via
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/committee.htm Additional
information about this issue and the OU’s role & views on it may be
accessed via
http://www.ou.org/public/Publib/faithbased.htm
Max Baucus, MT
Charles E. Grassley, IA
John D. Rockefeller , WV
Orrin G. Hatch, UT
Tom Daschle, SD
Frank H. Murkowski, AD
John Breaux, LA
Don Nickles, OK
Kent Conrad, ND
Phil Gramm, TX |
Bob Graham, FL
Trent Lott, MS
James M. Jeffords, VT
Fred Thompson, TN
Jeff Bingaman, NM
Olympia J. Snowe, ME
John F. Kerry, MA
Jon Kyl, AZ
Robert G. Torricelli, NJ
Craig Thomas, WY
Blanche L. Lincoln, AR |
|
