William Daroff Writes for the Huffington Post: The apparent turnaround late last month by the Obama Administration recognizing the importance of tax incentives to bolster charitable giving is good news for the tens of millions of Americans who receive life-saving support from America’s nonprofits such as Jewish Federations. We hope the upcoming fiscal year 2013 budget (scheduled to be released next week) also fully preserves the charitable deduction.

Demand for charity in America continues to grow while government resources for social service programs dwindle. America’s generous citizens fill this void and their contributions should be incentivized by the tax law. The White House has no choice but to rein in the budget, but the Administration does have a choice about continuing the century-old tradition of providing tax incentives for charitable giving. We are grateful that the Administration now agrees that fundamental tax reform should not create disincentives to charitable giving by reducing the deductibility of charitable contributions.

In numerous proposals over the past three years, the Administration had suggested making changes to the limit the tax deductibility of charitable contributions. The notion of losing these incentives worried many of our nation’s top charities because we know the significant impact this change in policy would have on the operating budgets of nonprofits serving the most vulnerable among us.

Americans give billions of dollars to charities each year. These donations are largely due to donors’ generosity and concern for their fellow Americans in need. But there is no doubt that taxes play a part in the giving equation, often helping donors to assure that charities receive the maximum financial benefit from their gifts.

In previous proposals, the tax benefit of all itemized deductions, including charitable contributions, would be capped at 28 percent. This would increase the after-tax-cost of a $10,000 donation by almost $1,200, or about 30 percent, if the top statutory tax rate for charitable deductions returns to 39.6 percent. What this means for Americans in need is that there’s a 30 percent greater incentive for donors to give under the Administration’s revised approach.

That’s why we are gratified with the change in the Administration’s policy to now recognize the importance of the tax deductibility of charitable contributions as announced in their tax reform platform. Unlike other tax incentives (housing, child care, etc), the charitable deduction is unique because it promotes behavior that provides no direct benefit to the donor. Rather the real benefit from this policy flows to society–especially our neighbors in need. This has been true for more than 100 years and remains increasingly important during these times of economic recovery and government austerity.

William Daroff is the Vice President for Public Policy and Director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Federations of North America

On November 8, 2002 when George W. Bush was President of the USA, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution number 1441 in a 15-0 vote which included yes votes from China and Russia. Heck, even Syria – at the time on the Council – voted for it! The Resolution among others gave Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council.” Almost ten years later, on February 6, 2012 when Barack Obama was President of the USA, a Security Council Resolution talking tough on Syria was vetoed by China and Russia. So much for America’s enhanced standing in the world in recent years…

Obama Tramples Constitution (Illustration)

Mike Brownfield writes for the Heritage Foundation: It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected under the First Amendment, it should not be surprising that Catholics and Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainline Lutherans alike find common cause in defense of their liberties.

Such is the case with the firestorm of opposition to Obamacare and the Obama Administration’s attack on religious liberty. Under a new Obamacare mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House is mandating that virtually all religious employers, with the exception of churches, provide health care coverage for contraception — including abortion-inducing drugs — thereby trampling upon their constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion. And it is this mandate that has caused a vehement response in churches and synagogues across the country.

Yesterday, the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, warned that the nation’s 70 million Catholics are ready to go to war with the Administration’s dictates, saying “Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church. This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets.”

Donohue’s remarks follow those of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and at least 153 Catholic bishopsacross the country who have weighed in with opposition to the mandate. “We Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so,” wrote Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Michigan. Those penalties include fines imposed by the federal government that could cost larger organizations millions of dollars per year.

The Catholic Church is not alone in its opposition to Obamacare’s onslaught against religious freedom. David Addington, The Heritage Foundation’s vice president of Domestic and Economic Policy, details the growing ranks of the faithful who say the Obama Administration has crossed a very dangerous line. The National Association of Evangelicals commented that “The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent” and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America stated, “In declining to expand the religious exemption within the healthcare reform law, the Obama Administration has disappointingly failed to respect the needs of religious organizations such as hospitals, social welfare organizations and more.” The Agudath Israel of America stated its opposition, as did the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and theAssembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America.

The Obama Administration is beginning to feel the pressure. On Sunday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebeliusauthored an op-ed in USA Today defending the Obama Administration’s actions, claiming that a very narrow exemption to the mandate is evidence that the White House is “working to strike the right balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing women’s access to critical preventive health services.” That exemption, though, does not apply to institutions like religious schools and hospitals. Sebelius might claim the Administration is offering grace to people of faith, but in fact it is not. In an editorial that ran the same day as Sebelius,’ USA Today agreed with those standing on the side of religious liberty, writing that “in drawing up the rules that will govern health care reform” the Obama Administration “galloped over” the line and violated the “simple proposition that the government should steer away from meddling in church affairs.”

The Obama Administration’s actions, though entirely counter to the freedom of religion, should not be surprising given the nature of the President’s health care law. Obamacare has given the federal government broad power over one-sixth of the American economy and thereby purports to grant Washington the power to force religious institutions to take actions contrary to their faith. Addington writes that this kind of concentration of power “has proved to be a drastic and dangerous experiment.” America’s religious leaders and the faithful have awoken to this wolf at their door and are lashing out in defense of their freedoms. Congress, too, should act now by repealing Obamacare and restoring the religious liberty that is so central to our way of life.

Read More: Heritage Foundation

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Every time you challenge Democrats on the bad shape of the economy three years and $5 trillion new debt after President Obama was inaugurated, you get hit with an answer that “when Obama came into office” the economy was so bad, etc.

Let me tell you what was when Obama came into office:

When Obama came into office, the Democrats concluded two years of controlling the House and Senate for the first time in over a decade. Until they showed up, everything was quite alright. Hell broke loose after their anti business policies started kicking in, and things became worse when the Democrat won the White House too.

When Obama came into office, he didn’t show up as a sitting Governor from a state who arrived to a mess. Instead, he was a voting member of the Majority party in the Senate who created the mess and he made things worse with Obama’s election. Yes, the crisis in late 2008 was more hype than fundamental. The policies that Obama pushed through within days and weeks of taking office made things worse, as we see that…

…When Obama came into office the economy concluded a year of shrinking only -0.3%. In Obama’s first year however, the economy shrunk by 3.5%.

…When Obama came into office we had a mess due to the housing market. However, the worst year for New Home Sales in US history took place in Obama’s third year; not Bush’s last.

…When Obama came into office we concluded the worst year of banks closings under Bush; 25 banks were shut in 2008 due to insolvency. Obama’s best year of bank closings (2011) saw 97 banks go under!

…When Obama came into office the economy had just concluded a year that lost 1.4 million less jobs than what the economy lost in Obama’s first year.

…When Obama came into office, we had concluded a year (2008) where the Unemployment Rate was on average 5.8% for the year. The best UR month on Obama’s watch is above eight percent.

When Obama came into office we were losing a half a million jobs a month. However just as the waters in New Orleans started receding before Bush did anything, jobs losses in the US were to recede even if Obama did not lift a finger. The only question was how fast jobs will come back. A rule in modern economics suggests that the steeper the down turn, the faster the roar back. But even if you look only at Obama’s “good” job months (largely since we elected a do-nothing Congress that he likes to attack for not passing jobs bills…), the job gains are less than what President Ford – with an economy and population 35 years smaller than now – delivered at this time following the steep down turn of the mid 1970′s, and it’s a drop in the bucket to what Reagan gave us after the steep 1981 down turn.

When Obama came into office with an economy of 133.5 million non-farm jobs, his economic team projected that at the end of 2010 we will have 137 million of those jobs if we follow Obamanomics. However, at the start of the current year, we had less than 133 million jobs; which is four million jobs short than what we were supposed to have a year ago!

Finally, when Republican President Warren Harding came into office in early 1921, the economy was in a depression, with GDP (then called GNP) down almost four times more than the recent down turn. However, when Harding concluded his third year in office after pushing through steep tax cuts, the Unemployment Rate was lower than the pre-depression levels despite the fact that more people came into the workforce, whereas now despite millions giving up on looking for jobs, the Unemployment Rate is still higher than “when Obama came into office.”

The University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics conducted an analysis on the last 70 State of the Union addresses and found that President Obama’s three addresses have the lowest grade average of any modern president. “Obama‘s average grade-level score of 8.4 is more than two grades lower than the 10.7 grade average for the other 67 addresses written by his 12 predecessors,” they conclude.

“The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level. Longer sentences and sentences utilizing words with more syllables produce higher scores. Shorter sentences and sentences incorporating more monosyllabic words yield lower scores,” the University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier explains.

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We thank President Barack Obama for the clear and positive vision he laid out this evening in his State of the Union address-an address that showcased a ringing endorsement of Jewish values.

American Jews are as concerned as all other Americans with our economy and jobs; the President’s plan to ensure that America’s is an ‘economy built to last,’ and the steps he’s proposed regarding making taxes less regressive and ensuring shared responsibility, will ring true to the vast majority of American Jews. Similarly his direct discussion of wanting to sign comprehensive immigration reform, helping students to afford higher education and broadly prioritizing education speaks to the priorities of American Jews-and to most Americans. This President’s commitment to continue keeping Americans safe through common-sense regulations-be it in the field of health, safety, on Wall Street or elsewhere-is more crucial now than ever before as well.

On two foreign policy issues of special concern to the American Jewish community-Israel and Iran-President Obama’s words tonight speak volumes. The President rightly observed that ‘a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.’ Indeed Iran’s leaders are more isolated than ever before, and this President’s leadership on isolating Iran is already achieving results. His clarion words on this core issue of our day-‘Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal’-was a powerful statement on the world’s stage. Similarly, his reminder regarding his strong leadership surrounding the U.S.-Israel relationship, in which he noted that ‘Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history,’ was both important and deeply appreciated in this address.

Throughout this State of the Union, one common thread was consistent; the reflection of the policy concerns of the vast majority of American Jews. We thank and congratulate the President for this positive, proactive approach to addressing those concerns in tonight’s State of the Union Address.

Right Scoop: The Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus is admitting that if Obama were white, they’d be marching on the White House to protest how horrible the economy is in the black community. But because Obama is black, he get’s a pass.

That pretty much sums it up. They use race to destroy Newt Gingrich and use it to protect Barack Hussein Obama.

This is EXACTLY what Allen West was talking about:

DAILY CALLER – Following his appearance at Republican Rep. Allen West’s Black Conservative Forum, Cleaver elaborated on his past comments about Obama’s image in the African American community, saying, “The point I was making is that black people hold the president in such high esteem, that they would not dare march on the White House even though unemployment is at 15 percent and higher and if there was a white president we would do that because we’ve had white presidents since George Washington.”

Cleaver continued, “The point was that if we had anybody else in the White House, with this level of unemployment, that you know, you would see a lot more African Americans, African American organizations and retro organizations speaking out against it. But because he is revered, you know, he gets I guess the benefit of, you know, understanding that the situation was terrible when he came in. So, we’re not doing that.”

The Missouri Democrat told TheDC that he personally resisted a proposed Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) “prayer” demonstration at the White House.

“I was resistant to a group of individuals who wanted to lock arms, surround the White House, with several thousand people during the ALC this past October and pray. I resisted it because I thought if we did that it would be interpreted as some kind of assault on the president, which I was not willing to launch,” he said.