Everybody else is giving him unsolicited advice. Why not me?
1. Priority One: Junk all the government PCs and replace them with MACs. I'm totally serious about this. Federal government IT is straight out of the stone age. The campaign was won with MACs. Want a smarter government? Use a smarter computer.
2. An unGodly amount of nonprofit capital is tied up in foundation endowments and investments. Foundations seem to be more interested in perpetuating themselves in perpetuity than in making grants. The current "five percent a year" rule just isn't fast enough in confering a public benefit commensurate with the tax deferment benefit. Solve the "perpetual foundation" problem with legislation that requires a foundation to go out of business within 20 years of its founder's death. Don't let someone purchase immortality with tax-deferred dollars.
3. The GAO estimates that taxpayers "mis-report" their cash gifts to charity to the tune of $176 billion annually. Mis-report? Right. How many people do you think claim less than they actually gave. Sure, for gifts over $250 the charity is suppossed to issue a receipt, but what about gifts less than that amount? Knowing that the chance of an IRS audit is slim, some people cheat. Close this loophole. Since a tax deduction for a donor results in additional income for the donor, shouldn't it be reported to the IRS by a third party like other income is? Your employer sends Uncle Sam a W-2. Your bank sends Uncle Sam your interest income. Etc. etc. Likewise, require that cash gifts be reported to the IRS by a third-party transmitter. How could this be done without revealing to Uncle which charities you support, which would no doubt put a chill on giving? Easy: Encourage individual and family donor advised funds -- the "charitable checking accounts" of the philanthropic world. With goverment encouragement, and perhaps a tax-benefit carrot or two, the finance industry would soon make DAFs as common as the common checking account. By giving through your DAF, the government would have independent documentation of how much you gave but not whom you gave it to. Marketed right, this idea would, I believe, result in an increase in giving overall because DAFs by their very nature periodically remind and encourage one to give.
4. Prohibit public corporations from making charitable contributions. This is shareholder theft of the basest sort. Why should the company take your money and give it to somebody else? That's the government's job. If the CEO wants to write a fat check to the United Way, let him use his own money. While you are at it -- and more to the point -- we need to overturn the legal theory that corporations are "people" and have citizen rights. This monstrous travesty of legal logic is why corporations have more clout than the general public.
5. Appoint a Charity Czar to do czar-like things. I volunteer.
