The release of 2008 tax returns by President Barak Obama and Vice President Joe Biden does little to encourage charity among lesser Americans. The Obamas are wealthy, thanks to the sales of the president's two books (both of which I've read and recommend), but the Bidens, though well-to-do in terms of ordinary Americans, are relatively poor by Senate/vice presidential standards.
What I found interesting in the returns, and I've been noting this for 30 years, is our leaders' charitable giving. The Obamas donated $172,050 out of a gross income of nearly $2.7 million to charity, about 6.5 percent. In terms of national averages, the Obamas were much more generous than the average American. The Bidens, on the other hand, donated $1,885 out of an adjusted gross income of $269,256. That's way less than 10 percent; in fact, it's less than 1 percent. In fact, it's considerably less than my wife and I (on far, far less income than the Bidens') listed on our 2008 returns.
The White House, in releasing the returns, commented that the Bidens' contributions listed on their returns do not include all their charitable contributions, citing donations to church as not included in the returns. Huh? Do you mean the vice president is making charitable donations but not deducting them from his taxes? What would prompt him to do that?
Charitable donations by presidents and presidential candidates have disappointed me for decades. Ronald Reagan's contributions were stingy, as were the Clintons, if memory serves. The last time I recall being impressed by a president's charity was during the Carter years. Jimmy Carter, regardless of what else you might say, is a man who lived his faith.
Does charity matter? I think it says something about character. I know people with low income, perhaps poverty level, who are quite generous in their charity. We all know others, such as Joe and Jill Biden, who give minuscule shares of their blessings to charity. Charity is an obligation in my view and in the view of the world's great religions. Some years ago, when I was running a newsroom, I urged my colleagues to sign up for United Way payroll deductions. Despite a pay freeze that had eliminated pay raises at the newspaper for the past couple of years, I told them in an e-mail that we were far better off than those helped by the United Way and, despite our own fiscal worries, we could afford to help others immeasurably worse off than we were. I don't know whether my appeal improved the newspaper's embarrassingly low participation in United Way, but I know it expressed a sincere conviction.
If Joe Biden truly believes in helping the unfortunate, it should show in his tax return.
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GIVING TO CHARITY 2
In some circles it is widely assumed that liberals are more caring, compassionate, and generous in all aspects of life than conservatives. Is there any evidence for this belief? In a 2006 book titled Who Really Cares? Syracuse University Professor Arthur C. Brooks disposes of that fideism conclusively.
Three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various churches, charities, and causes – far and away the highest percentage of any country in the world. But who are these Americans? In a comparison of charitable giving between South Dakota and San Francisco the people of South Dakota gave an average of $1287 per capita annually while the people of San Francisco gave $1279 – practically speaking, the same amount. Actually though since the latter had 75% more income, including 50% more disposable income one could say that the people of South Dakota gave 75% to 50% more than the people of San Francisco. Why this difference? The answer lies in the factors which influence charity giving. These factors are religion, attitude toward government, work ethic, and family status. The clear single most important of these is religion. Fifty percent of the people interviewed in South Dakota describe themselves as religious and 10% as secular; for San Francisco it was almost the opposite – 14% say they are religious and 49% secular.
One in three Americans attends church every week. One in four never goes. Of the people who say they are religious and attend church at least once per week 91% give money to charity for an average annual amount of $2210 and 67% contribute their time. For the people who say they are secular and never go to church 64% give an average annual amount of $542 and 44% contribute their time.
Liberals claim that religion breeds hostility and intolerance towards people outside the group and these religious people give less to charity than liberals. Besides what they do give goes to their churches. The data do not support this contention. For secular causes the breakdown is as follows: Seventy-one percent of religious people give an average of $532 and 60% volunteer their time; 61% of secular people give an annual average of $467 and 35% volunteer their time.
People’s type of religion statistically makes no difference whether they give to charity: 92% of Protestants do, 91% of Catholics, 91% Jews, and 89% of others. Further the generosity of religious people applied across a broad of spectrum of giving. They exceed secularists in informally giving money, time, and blood (twice as likely). When corrected for income, education, gender, and race there is still a 10% differential. Giving is on a ‘do it all’ basis or nothing (25% do nothing). These same people also are more likely to give back mistaken excessive change in stores than secular people. The main factor in whether and the amount given for 9/11 charity causes was religion.
What motives religious people to give more to charity than non-religious people? It is nature or nurture? There was an interesting survey conducted on hundreds of identical (monozygotic) twins born between 1935 – 1965 who were separated at birth and adopted by different families where it was estimated that 50% to 80% of their outlook on life including how happy they were was determined by genetics as was 50% of their religiosity. In a different study of one-half of a group of self-described secularists who went to church as children, 47% contribute to charity. Of the other half who did not go to church as children 26% gave to charity. Clearly how generous people are in giving to charity is determined by both genetics and environment.
Conservative families give 30% more to charity than liberal families even though they have 6% less income. It is not a matter of politics – the main reason is that conservative families are more religious than liberal families. Of 25 states that led per capita charity giving 24 went to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In the 1996 Democrat Presidential Convention 60% of the delegates described themselves as secularists versus 25% for the US population as a whole. A map of the states which give the most (on a per capita basis) to charity and the states which give the least looks strikingly like the red/blue map of Republicans and Democrats with the red states giving the most.
The following is either good news or bad news depending upon your perspective. People can be broken into four groups: Religious conservatives; secular liberals; religious liberals; and secular conservatives. The first two categories are by far the most populous. Religious conservatives have 41% more children than secular liberals. As the number of religious conservatives is increasing the number of religious liberals is shrinking.
In Europe the only religious segment of the population which is increasing is Muslim. In fact given the drastic drop in the traditional European population I question if even one baby has been born in this new century (try to recognize a bit of hyperbole). It was rumored that in an ancient Western European capital a Christian family was observed going to church every Sunday and was stoned to death by a mob. Well, it may not have happened, but given the ever increasing Godless heathenism of “Old Europe” who can say this will not happen in the next 50 years or so.
The causative incentives of Americans giving to charity are virtue and faith - not because they get a tax deduction on their income tax returns. In fact only 30% of income tax payers get a tax deduction for charity and only 20% of tax payers say that a tax deduction was the major reason they gave to charity. A major charitable organization tried an experiment by sending out two types of solicitations for contributions. One emphasized the need for money to buy food to feed the hungry people in the world. The other addressed the need for money to correct root causes of poverty. The results were that .83% of the requests to feed the hungry were successful in getting money and only .12% were successful where the emphasis was on correcting root causes of poverty. This difference represents millions of dollars in contributions. Americans are not into solving all the problems in the world, they just want to help the needy.
A recent survey came out showing that evangelicals have essentially the same divorce rate for marriages that other groups do. I guess that shows those people are no more stable in their family lives than others does it not? Not so fast. In order for a divorce to occur there has to be a marriage. Are you with me so far? The number of co-habituating couples among evangelicals is extremely low compared to all others – they do not believe in, how can I put this delicately, merely shacking up. When co-habituating couples split there is no divorce, they just go their separate ways.
There is a cliché which goes ‘The exception proves the rule’ – meaning it is not the norm because it is the exception. So also there are secularists who give generously to charity. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are not religious and they give billions of dollars to charity; likewise the egregious Ted Turner, a notorious Christian hater, gives hundred of millions to charity; and even the poisonously vitriolic Rosie O’Donnell who seems to dislike most people, including herself, and especially Christians, gives millions to charity. What I have discussed above applies to what is true on average. Incidentally I enjoyed the comment Canadian comedian Howie Mandel made about the O’Donnell / Trump feud: “May the better man win.” Mandel, who at one time owned a carpet cleaning company, suffers from obsessive-compulsion disorder (OCD) and mysophobia (fear of germs) for which he takes medication. It doesn’t seem to have diminished his humor. And I can empathize with his latter condition – germs are out to do us in.
What is the impact of governmental giving to non-profit charitable organizations? It is not good. Some non-profits get as much as 80% - 90% of their money from government. It is estimated every dollar given by government displaces $0.25 to $0.50 of private giving. This phenomenon is called ‘crowding out’ and interferers with the symbiotic relationship of individual largesse and charitable institutions. Individuals, families, and communities benefit from charitable giving in many important ways and the efforts of charities are misdirected.
Rich people give more to charity than poor people which is tantamount to saying that the rich have more money than the poor. How about on an income adjusted basis? Here the results are different. On this basis the poor (in a general sense without defining exactly what rich and poor means) give more than the rich who in turn give more than middle income folks. That is not intuitive, but is the way it is.
Ironic.
If it weren't for most of the "conservative" policies; (including the Republican/Church quid pro quo scheme), there wouldn't be as much need for charity (or the finger pointing partisanship about who gives and who doesn't) in the first place.
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....ha, ha, ha... what thought process. Government handouts and lack of motivation b/c of the handouts create the environment for people to sit on their butts.
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