President Barack Obama every year has proposed reducing the value to higher-income taxpayers of the tax deduction for charitable giving. Challenger Mitt Romney has been floating the idea of capping the total amount of the deductions any taxpayer can take, and perhaps eliminating the deduction entirely for the wealthy.

But is reducing the incentive for taxpayers to give their own money away to other people the best way for the government to deal with its vast imbalance between spending and revenues? There’s good reason to doubt it . . .

Follow the story at Alliance for Charitable Reform.