Hidden in Obama's 2011 Budget was the termination of the Save America's Treasures program. Rationale was that the money could be better used on the National Park Service. The small projects weren't productive enough. Guess this mean NEA will keep funding the grants for curator training and international programs but will let the actual US museum restoration efforts disappear. This leaves the IMSA (sp?) programs as the only viable source for restoration

More importantly they are once again proposing eliminating the tax deductibility of charitable donations.

Yeah, for some reason I'm waiting Ross to provide some input on the superior wisdom of the hidden wisdom of these decisions.

I checked The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Web site and they report that Obama has proposed a cap on the tax break that wealthy taxpayers get for donations, but nothing like a complete elimination of the charitable deduction. The key line in the Chronicle story: "[T]he itemized-deductions cap would increase the after-tax cost of making a charitable donation by almost 20 percent for those in the highest tax bracket." (The full article is here.)

I don't know about other railroads, but the organization I know best—the Friends of the East Broad Top—seems to have comparatively few wealthy donors. My guess is most nonprofit railroads that solicit donations draw mostly on dedicated middle-class donors.

I'd sure be sorry to see the Save America's Treasures grants go, though.

-- Lawrence