Well, that's how you see it. I see it as I said before, the Democrats are all about giving other peoples' money away, through entitlements and taxation. Let me remind you that it's the government's tax code that encourages people to give, not the Republican tax code. Republicans aren't the only ones that get breaks from giving; the IRS doesn't care who takes advantages of these incentives. What's important is the bigger picture, in that charities are being funded, right? When it all boils down, what I've posted here is true. Republicans, on average give more to charity than Democrats do. To me, this is not "the embodiment of selfishness". Of course you do; we're on different sides of the fence here and I'd expect nothing less. I'm not exactly calling them selfish. I'm just pointing out a curious statistic. Democrats claim to be compassionate, but they don't always practice as well as they preach. I'm not saying one side is more morally upstanding than the other. I'm saying that your assertion of Republican=Selfish isn't supported by fact, but rather opinion. The numbers tell a different story.
Damn you are cynical. If a charity gets a $100,000 donation from some rich guy or corporation, that's a good thing. If the donor benefits in the form of a tax break, so what? The tax breaks weren't given in order to help the rich, as you point out at every opportunity. The tax breaks are there to encourage charitable donations. If they do away with the tax breaks, Obama gets more revenue to spend, adding to the already unsustainable deficit, and the charities get nothing.
Then, Let me remind you that it is also the government's entitlements and taxation, not the democrats. And mischaracterizing taxation as "giving other people money away" is blatantly transparent. They also cut programs for the needy while giving even more tax breaks to the fabulously wealthy an placing an increasing burden on the middle class. I call that selfish. Republicans have to be provided with generous tax breaks to encourage any charitable contributions at all. Even their charitable contributions have selfish motives. Your numbers, perhaps. You tried to shift the conversation from tax breaks for the rich to charitable contributions. I don't blame you. It hard to argue logically that the people that are getting incredibly rich on these tax breaks deserve to get even more of them. Or that they are completely unselfish in promoting a system that benefits them over the other 90% when the nation needs that lost income badly..
What a surprise! It's both, actually. But don't miss my point. Of course, charity deductions are good things. The point is that a person must have a surplus after expenses and savings to afford to make charitable contributions. The low-wage worker never gets the opportunity to post a surplus and the middle class can afford only modest contributions. It's another one of those seemingly innocuous tax breaks that can really only be fully taken advantage of by high-income, high-surplus individuals.
Not true. It's not what you make that counts, it's what you keep. Most of our society spends every penny they make. We have always considered charitable giving as part of our budget. It and our savings get paid before we budget the rest to live on.
I would say you are not the norm, for sure. But I too have my charitable contributions on automatic transfer, it doesn't come from my spending money. But I still consider it to be surplus, in the sense of being surplus to what I need to maintain my standard of living.
If you want to call it that. I think we agree on the point though, that people don't look at it as a budget item or necessary expense. You and I apparently do.
No more so than saying republicans are ending up with all of the money while the country goes broke, or SF saying that Democrats don't work for a living (which I know is a pretty big generalization as well). Right, same with anyone not just republicans. They didn't write the code to say "We'll give republicans tax breaks for charitable contributions". And in that statement, surely you're not saying that the tax breaks are what gets them to let go of that money, is it? That seems contradictory to your past statements that tax breaks for the rich do no good for anyone but them. I gave you the sources I got the info from. Your source had no more or no less validity than mine. Yours was from a professor at Oregon that did a study, my original source was from a professor at Syracuse that did a study 7 years later. I could argue that mine was a more recent study, but I don't see that being relevant if you don't. As far as shifting the conversation, I didn't. My original post was a reply to you saying that Republicans are the embodiment of selfishness. I posted an article that said otherwise. You didn't specify anything about tax breaks in the post I was originally replying to. You brought up tax breaks later in the conversation, so I obliged and continued on that path. So actually, it seems it was you that shifted the conversation. I don't blame you though, it's hard to logically back up a statement such as the one you made that I disagreed with.. Always a pleasure, Red...
since katrina, 10% of the gross of my business goes to three different new orleans non-profits to help them recover from katrina. he picked one, i picked one, and we picked one that meant a lot to both of us. we just budgeted it in. but you and red are right. i dont think taking it off the top is the norm.
