The Broken Chair

Overlooked by many in President Obama's budget proposal is a provision that would reduce by 20 percent the amount wealthy people can deduct from their taxes for making charitable donations. This is big business, especially here in Washington. Most of the federal city's major think tanks and policy institutes -- not to mention its food banks, homeless shelters and other social service agencies -- are nonprofit organizations funded by private donors.

Under the administration's plan, households earning more than $250,000 a year would have their itemized tax deductions for charitable giving capped. So instead of getting a 35 percent deduction, on par with their income tax bracket, they would get a 28 percent deduction.

At least one person on campus has done OK as the economy has declined: public university presidents' salaries climbed 7.6% last year. Fifteen presidents of public research universities took home at least $700,000 in 2007-2008, up from eight in last year's survey, and nearly one-third now earn over $500,000, according to the annual Chronicle of Higher Education survey out Monday.

Top-paid presidents at private universities (based on 2006-07):

• David J. Sargent, Suffolk University, Boston ($2,800,461)*

• Henry S. Bienen, Northwestern University, Chicago ($1,742,560)

• Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia University, New York ($1,411,894)

• Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ($1,326,774)

Top-paid presidents at public universities (based on 2007-08):

• E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State University, ($1,346,225)

• Mark Emmert, University of Washington ($887,870)

• John Casteen, University of Virginia ($797,048)

• Mark Yudof, University of Texas ($786,045) (Yudof is now at the University of California)

Top-paid community college presidents:  

• Michael McCall, Kentucky Community and Technical College ($610,670)

• Eduardo Padron, Miami Dade College ($575,450)

The provision, which attracted virtually no attention in the debate over the 1,073-page stimulus bill, creates something called the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — the RAT Board, as it’s known by the few insiders who are aware of it. The board would oversee the in-house watchdogs, known as inspectors general, whose job is to independently investigate allegations of wrongdoing at various federal agencies, without fear of interference by political appointees or the White House.

In the name of accountability and transparency, Congress has given the RAT Board the authority to ask “that an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.

When Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, read the words “conduct or refrain from conducting,” alarm bells went off. The language means that the board — whose chairman will be appointed by the president — can reach deep inside a federal agency and tell an inspector general to lay off some particularly sensitive subject. Or, conversely, it can tell the inspector general to go after a tempting political target.

About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House correspondent. "Where's Chuck?" He had the same strange question about Fox News's Major Garrett: "Where's Major?"

The problem wasn't the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.