Generosity of Americans part 2 Progressives/Liberals are Hypocrites When it Comes to Real Charity

This a reprint of the second post I ever made back in 2008 during the campaign.

While it is from 2008, the substance still stands as a fact while much of it is historical in showing that Progressives/Liberals altruism is only with other peoples money namely the tax payer NOT THEIR OWN.


Their supposed moral high ground, fairness, equality, and good intentions does not extend to their pocketbook.

I will acknowledge that since Obumbler as become much more visible as occupier of the White House and scrutiny more intense he has upped his charitable contributions the last two years to a new high for him of 21.8% from 14% in 2010 and up from 1% while a Senator in Illinois. 

To be cynical this amount drops his tax rate a lot which is surprising since he is always ranting at the rich to paying their fair share.

We don't see him writing any extra checks to the IRS out of the goodness of his heart though. 

In my continuing quest to uncover misnomers which pervade our culture I found this article on the net I want to share with you.

Liberal Scrooges by Peter Schweizer (published 6/6/2008)

For those of you who want to read more:

Peter Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of a new book:

Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic And Envious, Whine Less.........and Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals (Doubleday).

Samuel Johnson once reported on a man who was privately stingy but publicly touted the merits of sharing. Dr. Johnson said sarcastically that the man was a "friend of goodness". What he meant was that flesh-and-blood goodness is very different from supporting "Goodness" in the abstract.

Many modern liberals like to openly discuss their altruism.  Garrison Keillor explains that "I am liberal and liberalism is the politics of kindness."  But it rarely seems to turn into acts of kindness, especially when it comes to making charitable donations.

Consider the case of Andrew Cuomo(now Governor), current New York Attorney General and advocate for the homeless. He has, according to his website, " compassion toward the most vulnerable of us."  And this how the New York Times described the courtship of Kerry Kennedy (of guess which family): "Ms. Kennedy-Cuomo, 43 said she fell in love with Mr. Cuomo, 45 when he took her on tour of a homeless shelter on their first date and agreed to fast for the labor leader Cesar Chavez."

But advocacy should not be confused with actually giving to the less fortunate. Cuomo was a homeless advocate throughout the 1990's, but according to his own tax returns he made NO charitable contributions between 1996 and 1999.  In 2000 he donated a whopping $2,750.  In 2004 and 2005, Cuomo had more than $1.5 million in adjusted gross income but gave a paltry $2,000 to charity.

Cuomo made no charitable contributions in 2003, when his income was a bit less than $300,000.

CUOMO IS NOT alone in this Scroogery of course.  


Barack Obama has a rather poor track record when it comes to charitable contributions.  He consistently gave 1% of his income to charity.  In his most charitable year, 2005 he earned $1.7 million (two and half times what George W. Bush earned) but gave about the same dollar amount as the President.

The last two Democratic Party nominees for President have come up short on the charity scale. Al Gore has been famously stingy when it comes to actually giving his own money to charities. In 1998 he was embarrassed when his tax returns revealed that he gave just $353 to charity.

Gore's office initially defended the action, claiming that the Gores had often given "food and clothing to the homeless."  But when no one showed up in cast-off clothes, Gore's spokesman Chris Lehane offered a typical "friend of Goodness" response saying that you could only "truly judge a person's commitment to helping others" you needed to see "what they have done with their lives."  In other words, POLITICS was charity work.

Senator John Kerry likewise has a poor record. In 1995 he gave zero to charity, but did spend $500,000 to buy a half stake in a seventeenth century painting.  In 1993, he gave $175 to the needy.  Later, of course, Kerry married the rich widow Theresa Heinz, and today is active in charitable causes using the Heinz foundation as his vehicle.

Senator Ted Kennedy has clearly relished his role over the years as a liberal Robin Hood.  He once told Al Hunt of the Wall Street Journal, "I come from an advantaged life, and I'll be goddamned if I'm get re-elected to the US Senate by taking food out of the mouths of needy children."  But this should not be confused with Senator Kennedy actually giving money to needy children.

Kennedy's tax returns are obviously a closely guarded secret. But when he chose to run for President in the 1970's, he released some of them.  With a net worth of more than $8 million in the early 1970's and an income of $461,444 from a series of family trusts, Senator Robin Hood gave barely 1% of his income to charity.  The sum is about as much as Kennedy claimed as a write-off on his 55 foot sailing sloop Curragh.

Robert Reich, once Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor and now professor at Berkley, has been outspoken about how greedy conservatives are.  Conservatives believe in "reviving social Darwinism" and because of conservatives, "America has placed to high a value on selfishness."

But when he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he was forced to release his tax returns.  It's not a pretty picture.  Reich's 1040 reveals an income of more than $1 million, much of it giving speeches to corporations and universities for up to $40,000 a pop.  He contributed just $2,714 to charity or .2% of his income - note the decimal - and not all of that was cash.  Part of it was the value of a donation of a used drum set to an organization calle City of Peace.

Jesse Jackson (the race-baiter/grand pot stirrer) has often claimed that he operates from a "liberal spirit of compassion and love" while conservatives are "heartless and uncaring toward the silent poor."  But according to his publicly released tax returns, he regularly donates less than 1% to charity.

Jackson and his family have also established a charitable foundation called the Jackson Foundation(to shake down banks and corporations) to support the underprivileged.  According to tax records, the foundation board is controlled by family members and they receive large  contributions from corporations like McDonalds, Anheuser-Busch, and GMAC.

When asked on the tax form to decribed "direct charitable activities, " the foundation responded: "none."  From the close to million dollars collected, they gave away only $46,000 to a couple of colleges.  The Jackson Foundation spent nearly twice that amount - $84,172 - on a "gala celebration" in honor of - you guessed it - Jesse Jackson.

NOR IS THIS liberal tightfistedness anything new.  The greatest liberal icon of the 20th Century is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  He is regarded by many on the left as the personification of charity and compassion, but FDR actually has a silm record when it comes to giving to charity (as a typical progressive he believed in charity as giving away the taxpayers money not his).

Roosevelt has an average income of $93,000 ($1.3 million in todays money) but gave away about 3% of his income to charity.  In 1935, during the height of the Great Depression, when people really could have used it, he donated just 2%.

The evidence of liberal hypocrisy is damning enough, but what really amazes is how poorly these liberal do in comparison to so-called "heartless conservatives."

President Ronald Reagan, for instance, was often called heartless and callous by liberals. 

Unlike Roosevelt or JFK , Regan was not a wealthy man when he became president.  He had no family trust or investment portfolio to fall back on.

And yet, according to his tax returns, Reagan donated more than FOUR TIMES more to charity - both in terms of actual money and on a percentage basis -  than Senator Ted Kennedy.

And he gave more to charity with less income than FDR did.  In 1985, for example, he gave away 6% of his income.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have continued this Reagan record.  During the early 1990's, George W. Bush regularly gave away more than 10% of his income.  In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney gave away 77% of his income to charity.  He was actually criticized by some liberal blogers for this, who claimed he was getting too much tax deduction.

The main point of liberal compassion appears to be making liberals feel good about their superior virtue.

Such are the rewards of being a "friend of goodness."

These misnomers have to be made more public.

I am soooooo tried of liberal whining and the people who I have the chance to question who are liberal are do nothings and give nothings or very little.

Why is it so hard to understand that EVERY person has to take responsibility for themselves and that CHARITY is a PERSONAL PRIVATE act and NOT A POLITICAL act.

You CANNOT LEGISLATE CHARITY.

LIBERALS should be responsible for themselves first and not shove responsibility off on the government. 

This why we saw in my first post that Europeans have a miserable record of donating or volunteering because they truly believe the government has a "program" to meet whatever needs.

Progressives I believe are consciously increasing the "dependent class" while creating loyal voters who will gladly give their vote for free entitlements.

It is the same symbiotic relationship they have with the unions.

This must end - Obumbler and his minions need to be VOTED out of office before they totally ruin the Republic.

The Generosity of Americans.

THIS IS A REPRINT OF MY FIRST POST.

With all the progressive's and Obumbler's talk about "fairness", waging class warfare and class envy it is time to expose some of their lies and deceptions.

I started with Americans in general and close with a comparison of Conservatives vs Progressives/Liberals.

I will republish my Part 2 post which concentrates on the latter only.

Brooks has a new book out which still substantiates these statistics which have not changed much over time.

This all started two weekends ago while at breakfast with two friends who boldly stated that America is such a bad place - we do not care about the public welfare etc....I remarked that this was not true that in fact Americans are the most generous people on the planet.

Of course I was challenged - which started my research you will find here.

Let me preface by saying I am so sick of hearing what a bad, hostile, warmongering, fearful place America is.

The mainstream media in this country is so anti "Bush" they will stop at nothing to get Obama elected. 

The Democrats are also so bent out of shape that they are espousing the usual "we care more" to try and win.

I only hope the American public are smart enough to see through this rouse - for in my opinion electing Barack Obama will only lead to (and it is all coming true since I stated it in 2008)

•  huge tax increases
•  less private giving of money and time
•  not to mention innovation and entrepreneurial-ship suffering
•  lead to the same sort of  socialism that exists in Europe.

There are of course so many other issues to speak to Healthcare, Energy, Immigration,etc.

First let's talk American Generosity.

I started with the National Philanthropic Trust and followed the threads from there including "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism" by Arthur C Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University.

Here are the facts:

Last year 89% of all American households donated money:  On average $1,620

In 2006 that sum reached  295 BILLION dollars and in 2007 the sum has gone over 300 billion dollars.

83% of those who donated money said they felt it was important to give some thing back to society.

In 2006 Corporate Foundation donated 4.2 BILLION dollars.(Do you think this number will remain so high should corporate taxes double?)

There are 1,o10,400 charitable organizations in America.

55% of all Americans volunteer.

This represents approximately 83.9 million Americans who gave time equalling 9 million full time jobs at a value of over 239 BILLION dollars.

No developed country in the world approaches American giving.

For example:

• Americans gave 3.5 times more than the French
• Americans gave 7 times more than the Germans
• Americans gave 14 times more than the Italians
• Americans volunteer 15% more than the Dutch
• Americans volunteer 21% more than the Swiss
• Americans volunteer 32% more than the Germans

Statistics show:

Europeans who are subject to high taxes and much more socialization overwhelmingly believe the government should cover what Americans GIVE of themselves.

It turns out donations are not just done for the tax break either. It's true that the total amount of taxes not paid because of donations is huge: in fact it represents the single largest government matching grant program ever created.

Still tax deductibility is largely irrelevant for most people.

The IRS record shows that only about a third of all people file itemized tax returns with donations - which translates to most Americans(particularly middle-lower income groups) do not take advantage of their legal entitlement. 

Of households who earn $120k or more only 40% itemize their donations.

Other interesting related attitudes:

People who gave time and money are 2 times more likely to donate blood.

They are 3 times more likely to give food or money to the homeless.

They are 3 times more likely to give up their seat on the bus or subway.

I wondered who are these generous Americans? 

How do they break down in terms of our society or culture?

Is it an economic factor or perhaps religious?

The answers will surprise you - I was very surprised at what I found.

The statistics I found are from 2000:

"Religious people" make up 33% of our population attend a house of worship at least once a week or more are 25 percentage points more likely to donate to charity than a "secularist" who are 27% of the population and attend a house of worship only a few times a year or have no religion at all.

The same goes for the volunteer rate.

But what does this really mean?

It means "religious people" gave FOUR times more dollars than "secularists":

$2,210 vs $642 (very poor showing for liberals but I am getting ahead of myself)

"Religious people" volunteer TWO times as often as "secularists" or 12 times a year vs 5.8 times per year.

Also in 2000:

• Families who earned 20k or less gave on average $450
• Families who earned 100k or more gave on average a little more than $3000
• The top 10% (those evil rich) households gave 25% of all the donations made.

I still was not satisfied with what I had found and the next logical thread was to see what role values play in all this and BINGO it was like striking gold. 

What do guess that would be but of course:

This is were it gets really good. 

Remember this is has to do with generosity not political issues per say.

Conservatives vs Liberals:

The stereotype that  "liberals" -  the caring; want to help the disadvantaged; the suffering; the poor; elevate the public welfare in FACT donate less TIME and less MONEY than "conservatives".

"self described conservatives" in America in fact are more likely to donate money than "self described liberals".

"Conservatives" gave on average 30% more than "Liberals".

This is not an artifact of income difference because on average liberals earn 6% more than conservatives.

This attitude pervades other areas as we saw before.

In 2002 blood donations:

Conservatives are more likely to give blood yearly and did so more than liberals.

In fact the "Extreme Conservatives" (religious right?) who are one fifth of our population donated 25% of the total blood supply. 

Image that!!!!

Politically speaking it is interesting to muse that if liberals and moderates in this country donated as much blood as conservatives the entire blood supply would increase by over a half and no longer be a social problem.

This lead me to the idea of Private giving vs Taxation.

It is a fact look it up that $1 privately given tends to increase the GDP by about $15 which is an excellent rate of return.

80% of self described liberals think the government should "do more" to reduce income inequality compared with 27% of self described conservatives.

I would submit that this is the reason besides religion why conservatives give more than liberals.

In 1996 conservatives gave 4 to 1 over liberals.

Wait a minute weren't those the golden years of prosperity under Bubba - where were all the liberals then ?

Over taxed? Maybe? 

This stat is unbelievable:

In 2002 people who stated the government was spending "to little" on the public welfare were less likely than those who stated that the government is "spending to much" on the public welfare to give food or money to a homeless person.

Go figure - what is going on here?

So should our government expand to cover current private giving through taxation as is done in Europe?

1. the evidence states that giving makes people feel GOOD-Happy it is a chemical reaction which occurs in the brain.
2. more importantly - private giving is implicated in ECONOMIC GROWTH. (remember Regan's trickle down effect) 

Per-capita charity and per-capita GDP move together and has been plotted overs the years.

Analysis shows a 10% increase in the GDP per person would lead to a 9% rise in charitable giving.

Likewise a 10% increase in giving per person will provoke a 3% increase in the GDP.

Again ONE dollar privately given increases the GDP by about FIFTEEN dollars.

Finally to sum up:

If we substitute our private our charitable giving for government redistribution programs we will pay in terms of Economic Growth; Personal Prosperity; and even HAPPINESS.

Think about it?

Do you know any HAPPY Europeans?

I lived there for six years and the only happy Europeans I know are the RICH ones.

So much for the European model.

In short our country is the MOST generous country in the world and I am really tried of the bad rap we receive from abroad but more so from our own citizens.

Stop complaining and bitching and as an INDIVIDUAL get off your ass VOLUNTEER give your time and money that is how we solve social problems.

Therefore I would propose that if all the liberals in this country would donate as much TIME and MONEY as conservatives we could solve a lot of our social ills.

Closing Facts:  

                

Conservatives donate at a rate of 91% compared to Liberals at 63%

Conservatives volunteer at a rate of 68% compared to Liberals at 44%

Conservatives volunteer to non-religious institutions at a rate of 65% compared to Liberals at 39%

Conservatives donate to non-religious institutions at a rate of 71% compared to Liberals at 66%

It is interesting to note that Liberal contributions to non-religious institutions tend to be to environment, animal rights groups or other liberal causes but always have a political implication.

Progressives/Liberals love to think their compassion equals giving.

Fact of the matter is Progressives/Liberals are Stingy!!!