citations please?
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Flavors of Capitalism vs. the sound bite society
- Thread starter icehorse
- Start date
citations please?
Ah, I wondered about that.
It's why I prefer the general (albeit snooty sounding) "one" to "you".
dianaiad
Well-Known Member
Of course. How many do you want?
We can begin with "Who Really Cares" by Arthur C. Brooks.
From the "Democratic Audit," we find that the authors use a study to determine that Republicans DO give more than Democrats...a study by Michael Sances (University of Memphis) and Michel Margolis (University of Pennsylvania). That was the first sentence. the authors of this article went on to explain that yes, they do but not really because of the reasons they do and who they give it to. A lot of excuses going on there.
Let's see...I'm timing myself and giving myself five minutes only...
OK, here's from the philanthropy round table:
In case you are confused about the bar graph....
A full explanation by the site follows it, but briefly? The dark bars represent the percentage of heavy givers by party, the medium bars represent the 'middle' giving by party, and the light bar represents the 'light givers' by party.
The Republicans are VERY clear winners here.
Graph 14:
Heavy vs. Light Charitable Giving
by Party Registration
Among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans alike, almost exactly half of the group averaged $100-$999 in annual charitable donations at the time of this 2005 poll. There was virtually no difference among the parties in the size of that moderate-giving group, so those results were not included in the graph to the left.
If, however, you zero in on giving that is heavier or lighter than the middle range (the bars pictured here), you find that the parties differ a lot. Democrats and Independents both had many zero-to-very-light givers (less than $100 for the year), and modest numbers of heavier givers. Republicans, in comparison, had comparatively few skinflints, and numerous serious donors—31 percent sharing at least $1,000 with charity, versus 17 percent among Democrats, and 20 percent among Independents.
(I love this one...conservative households have less income, but give 30% more, than liberal households.)
Graph 15:
Income and Giving by Ideology
OK, my time is up. You want more than this?
'cause I can give you more than this. I only gave myself five minutes, though, and didn't want to make the post TOO long.
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I don't think liberals have ever advocated that conservatives do "more." They may advocate higher taxes, but that would apply to everyone, both liberal and conservative. Everyone pays their fair share. What's wrong with that?
That's what taxes are for. Liberals pay taxes, too, so they're not advocating any policies for "others" that they're not willing to live under themselves.
It's not just about the money; it's about the attitude. The use of phrases like "bleeding heart" as a pejorative; that by itself is very revealing of the values and character of the person using it. Or when things like food for the needy is derisively scorned as "free stuff" coming from "other people's money," that's where conservative Christians open themselves up to criticisms such as the one you're taking issue with.
"Studies show," huh? I remember someone posted a thread a while back, claiming some studies showed that conservatives donate more to charity. That may or may not be true, but even if it is true, what does it really mean? A lot of charities are pretty big businesses, in and of themselves. But that's a topic for another thread.
Well, again, it's not "someone else's money." Everyone pays their fair share; that's all it is.
dianaiad
Well-Known Member
Well, if they weren't constantly accusing conservatives of being skin flints and lacking compassion when the conservatives are personally more charitable, I might consider your argument.
NO! The studies show that the liberals want to pay taxes INSTEAD of being personally charitable. They are hoping that they will actually pay less and get more that way. IMO, of course.
Sarcasm is permissible when the liberal stand is all talk and no action. When the conservative who has just spent four hours and lots of money at a homeless shelter calls a liberal a 'bleeding heart' and 'free stuff coming from other people's money," it's generally because said liberal has NOT personally contributed either money or time, but is still advocating not only taking the conservative's money by force, but being in charge of where it goes.....all the time he (the liberal) figures that HE isn't going to have to hand over anything, tax laws being what they are.
So...yet another liberal who can't deny that conservatives give more, but has decided that anything conservatives give to 'doesn't count?"
Figures.
Turns out that conservatives tend to give MORE than their 'fair share,' personally.
See post #43 on this thread. scroll down to the last graph.
I think you're overexaggerating when you say "constantly accusing." As I said, it's not about charity, it's about economic systems. But it's also a matter of how much they pay their employees and how much they charge their customers. It's in those situations where their inner skinflint and lack of compassion starts to show. It comes through in every labor dispute or strike, when workers organize and say they want to paid a living wage, and their employers say no.
That's why they get called "skinflints" and accused of lacking compassion, regardless of how much they might donate to Jerry's kids. If they're gouging/cheating their customers or refusing to pay a decent living wage, then why shouldn't they be called out on that?
So, you're saying that it's the liberals who are the skinflints? On what do you base that? I don't see anything wrong with paying taxes for social services, and I don't know of any liberals who have proposed outlawing private charities.
It's also possible that liberals would prefer their money to the government in the belief that it would be more equitably distributed and that they (as voters and citizens) would have some say in how it is spent. Money given to the private sector is based solely on a leap of faith that they're going to do something decent and compassionate with it.
You keep saying that only conservatives are singled out to pay taxes, but that's absolutely not true. There's no special tax exemption for liberals. I don't think there's any such box to check off on 1040 forms. We have a two-party system, and both parties argue incessantly and go into intricate, long-winded negotiations about where the tax money goes. Your imaginings of some kind of "liberal dictatorship" are unfounded. It's really just the opposite actually.
Well, in fact, it does count, since charitable donations are tax deductible. That may be the primary reason why wealthy conservatives donate at all, but whether it's out of genuine compassion, only they know for sure. And to whom are they giving these donations?
It's not specific enough. To say that one gives to "charity" doesn't say much, since "charity" is too broad a term and can cover a wide variety of cottage industries and organizations which may or may not be ethical, scrupulous, or honest.
It means that the Eisenhower platform of that time would be considered far left today -- and this was the Republicans; the party of big business.
Remember it was Eisenhower who warned the American people of the threat of the 'Military-Industrial Complex'.
He was America's most popular president; elected four times. He provided employment during the depths of the depression. He instituted checks and balances that prevented the corporatists from re-creating the conditions that led to the Great Depression, initiating a Golden Age of prosperity which lasted decades, till the "economic royalists" chipped away enough of it to re-create the unregulated, cowboy capitalism that created the inequalities that led to the depression in the first place.
The poor pay more of their disposable income than the rich, and the charities they contribute to tend to be those benefiting the needy and promoting the general prosperity.
The physical needs of the rich and poor are not that different -- food, shelter, healthcare, education, &c. The poor pay essentially 100% of their income on these. The middle class maybe 90%.
The rich, on the other hand, have lots of disposable income, and can afford to spend a great deal of it on status markers and luxuries. They become more and more isolated from the hoi-polloi and tend to play to their own tribe.
The charities they donate to favor groups that benefit their class politically or economically. They also tend to give to religious charities that benefit their own status communities; funding food banks, for example. These, of course, are a good thing -- very socialist -- but they're largely private food banks -- very tribal.
Their donations themselves tend to be status markers.
Percentage-wise the Poor Give More to Charity than the Rich
Poor give more generously than the rich
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dianaiad
Well-Known Member
Obviously.
Studies and articles, even by the left, which acknowledge that conservatives are more charitable than liberals. On things like I posted on post #43 of this thread. When one is perfectly willing to SOUND good by ranting that the government should do more, but won't help the needy HIMSELF, that's being a skinflint. When one presents himself as 'compassionate" but only with OTHER PEOPLE'S money, that's being a skin flint. When one A: doesn't contribute himself, B. presents himself as being more compassionate about the needy than the conservative who DOES contribute, and C. advocates that the government take all the money the conservatives have to support the liberal's pet cause (but not the cause the guy with the money would prefer) I call that being a hypocritical skinflint. For some reason the most loudmouthed liberals all seem to think that only conservatives are wealthy. (shrug)
Don't have to do that. One can eliminate private charities in several ways, and making them illegal would be a very bad move, 'optically.' However, one can eliminate them very efficiently if one removes the funds that allow them to work, and having the government force would be contributors to hand over the money in taxes does that quite handily. Not that I've actually thought about that one a whole lot, but it is true; where taxes are very high, private contributions tend to be low. There is only so much money to go around.
Baloney. One thing that can be absolutely guaranteed is that the government does things badly, inefficiently, and when they get the money, they WILL do stuff the taxpayers don't want. Private contributors can (and absolutely should) investigate private charities before they contribute, and make certain that the funds they send go where they want 'em to go.
There are MANY charity watch organizations that allow people to do that. This is why I know that contributing to Kids Wish is a very bad idea. only .8% of your contribution will go to help kids.....and why I know that contributing to the Red Cross and/or Catholic Charities is a pretty good one: almost all the money goes to the programs they support. It's why I contribute to the LDS welfare fund; 100% of my contribution there goes precisely where it's supposed to go. They have helped me in the past, I contribute to them.
If the contributor is too stupid to investigate the charity, that's his problem....but at least he CAN, and can make his own choice about where his money goes.
He has no such choice for the government
Mind you, I have NO problem with taxes when they go to infrastructure, law enforcement and the like: that's what we have government for. However, the private charities I contribute to are far more effective and efficient than the government is, and if one does the research, one can make certain that one's money only goes to those which are more efficient than the government.
And if the liberals would do that research and contribute the way the conservatives do, personally, there would be far less need for the government to take over.
Care to show me where I've said that? Because I haven't, y;know.
The most I've said is that liberals figure that they'll be out less money if the government grabs taxes from everybody than if they had to contribute personally.
Well, you go on and argue against a point I didn't make. I'll go get a hot chocolate. Let me know when you are done....
Ah, there you go...telling us that because of their choices, they aren't really giving anything.....because you don't approve of those choices.
Well, that does go for the 'secular' charities supported by liberals, which they are so proud of, saying that contributing to churches doesn't count (never mind that MOST charities that actually help people are run by churches).
Thanks for this info.
It appears that your argument is that we should view paying taxes and making charitable contributions as interchangeable activities? I don't think we can, unless perhaps we could guarantee that the charitable contributions were on par with taxes owed. In that case, I might agree with that option. That way I could personally stop funding so much spending for the military and instead make contributions to more helpful causes. But currently, that's not how it works. Am I missing something?
I like the word, "continually".
It means recurring, but not continuous.
But should we obsess over poetic language being not strictly precise?
Under Eisenhower and high corporate taxes, both the rich and the poor thrived. Business boomed. The economy boomed. At the same time infrastructure, education and social services were expanded, and WWII debt was eliminated.
A government "of, for and by" the people is a democracy; a co-operative. But this is not what the current US government actually is. It's a corporatocracy of oligarchs, that does not promote the interests of the people.
Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
The Guardian view on the 1%: democracy or oligarchy? | Editorial
General welfare stagnates, the middle class struggles and the poor become poorer -- and the 1% thrives. Markers like GDP and employment rates are misleading, and don't reflect the general prosperity.
The liberals can't afford to spend much on charity. The liberals are the educated middle class and poor.
What constitutes "other people's money?" Many would say the bulk of the country's treasure, held by only a handful of players, is ill gotten gain; wealth created by the people but appropriated by the rich.
You cite high taxes as though that was responsible for economic success.
But taxes weren't actually so high. This is because the tax code is more complex
than mere marginal rates. Don't forget avoidance mechanisms which are par of it.
Consider....
Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product
Actual revenue wasn't any higher than in subsequent years.
Remarkably steady, eh?
We have some lower rates today, but we've also lost the
tax shelters from days of yore, eg, recapture of accelerated
depreciation as reduced rate capital gains.
And so much more was going on to give us economic advantages.....
- Destroyed foreign competitors
- Lax health, safety, & environmental regulation
- More advanced technologies than other countries
Is it your claim that overall, as a percentage of income, the top earners weren't paying more in the 50s than they are now?
Relatedly, would you claim that wealth and income inequality have not risen substantially since the 50s?
I made the claim I made in that post.
You're asking something else.
But I have before posted that I'd cut taxes
(or even eliminate'm) for lower down folk.
Your claim has all sorts of wiggle room, and isn't clear.
Read it again...including the link.
Please explain how "receipts as a % of GDP" is the same as tax rates for the rich? They seem only loosely associated at best.