Mr. Obama is now standing his ground. He continued on Tuesday to insist that simple math argued that Republicans' alternative to higher rates would not work, not without affecting middle-income taxpayers and eroding charitable contributions from people seeking the tax advantages for their donations.

"The only way to do that would be if you completely eliminated, for example, charitable deductions," Mr. Obama said in an interview on Tuesday with Bloomberg TV. "Well, if you eliminated charitable deductions, that means every hospital and university and not-for-profit agency across the country would suddenly find themselves on the verge of collapse. So that's not a realistic option."


Is he saying that manipulating the tax code can affect the economy?
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He's saying hedge funds operating as NGOs that fund these candidates and foreign governments would find it hard to operate.