Suckers And Parasites
by digby
When Obama proposed to put back the charitable deduction for people who make over $250,000 a year to what it was during Ronald Reagan's admnistration, it was universally accepted that this would spell the end of charity as we know it. Apparently, all these wealthy philanthropists will refuse to give money to their favored charities is their tax break is less than it is right now because it just isn't worth it to them. These are people who everyone reveres as being the smartest and most productive, generous people in the world.
Fine. But can we at least stop talking about these people as if they are doing this because of their generous hearts? Here's evidence that it just ain't so:
America's poor are its most generous givers
In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.
"The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."
Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America's households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.
The figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.
None of the middle fifths of America's households, in contrast, gave away as much as 3 percent of their incomes.
President Obama said in his press conference last March when he announced the rollback of the charitable contribution tax break:
People are still going to be able to make charitable contributions. It just means if you give $100 and you’re in this tax bracket, at a certain point, instead of being able to write off 36 (percent) or 39 percent, you’re writing off 28 percent. Now, if it’s really a charitable contribution, I’m assuming that that shouldn’t be the determining factor as to whether you’re giving that hundred dollars to the homeless shelter down the street.
Sorry Mr President. That's a nice idea, but you misunderstand. The only people who aren't demanding a tax deduction for charitable giving are the poor. The middle class isn't looking for a huge amount. But the people who have more money than God, and who only give a measly 2% of it to charity in the first place, would rather get no write off at all than give that hundred bucks and only get 28%. It wouldn't even be worth their time to fill out the paperwork for such chump change.
h/t to bb
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