Generosity, Red and Blue Style
By Michael Medved
Beyond The News
A Massachusetts group called The Catalogue for Philanthropy just released its 2005 "Generosity Index"--comparing each state's ability to give (in terms of average adjusted gross income) with the percentage of taxpayers who actually report charitable donations. The results reveal a stunning political pattern: all 25 of the most generous states are red states that gave their electoral support to President Bush.
But of the bottom 12--the stingiest states of them all in terms of charity--11 of 12 are blue states that backed John Kerry--with Massachusetts itself second to the bottom.
The reason GOP states are so much more generous is both obvious and profound: conservatives view compassion as a personal responsibility, but liberals tend to see it as the government's job. One approach leads to individual commitment, while the other encourages the belief you can best help others by leaving it up to tax collectors and bureaucrats.
Beyond The News
A Massachusetts group called The Catalogue for Philanthropy just released its 2005 "Generosity Index"--comparing each state's ability to give (in terms of average adjusted gross income) with the percentage of taxpayers who actually report charitable donations. The results reveal a stunning political pattern: all 25 of the most generous states are red states that gave their electoral support to President Bush.
But of the bottom 12--the stingiest states of them all in terms of charity--11 of 12 are blue states that backed John Kerry--with Massachusetts itself second to the bottom.
The reason GOP states are so much more generous is both obvious and profound: conservatives view compassion as a personal responsibility, but liberals tend to see it as the government's job. One approach leads to individual commitment, while the other encourages the belief you can best help others by leaving it up to tax collectors and bureaucrats.
posted by HeavyHanded at
11:28 AM
1 Comments:
The Generosity Index is a hoax. It is a hoax that has been perpetrated on the American public by media that apparently completely lack journalistic inquisitiveness. There are statistics that give the Index verisimilitude, but it is shocking that there has been practically no consideration of what the numbers actually mean. The treatment of the Generosity Index as a serious matter by the media is no less shocking than any dependence on flawed unnamed sources or forged documents. The exploitation of the Generosity Index for political purposes is even more outrageous and demonstrates a lack of either moral or journalistic integrity. Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Andrew Sullivan, Michael Medved, Wesley Pruden, Senator Trent Lott, and Charles W. Dunn (Dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University) have all made absurd and unwarranted conclusions from comparing the state rankings derived from the Generosity Index and election results. Either they lack the intellectual wherewithal to realize that the Index is nonsense or they are deliberately engaging in yet another willful distortion of facts. Ms. Malkin in addition appears in her Web posting to engage in plagiarism by not acknowledging that others had presented the graphic correlation of the Index and election results previously.
What is wrong with the Index? In general states with low per capita income and lower levels of education are ranked higher than those with higher income and education level. The Index is based on a statistically suspect combination of rankings based upon state average gross income (AGI) and average itemized charitable contribution deductions (ICD). The data are obtained from the Internal Revenue Service. Some commentators have focused on the fact that only money contributions are included, whereas others have suggested that the higher cost of living in the richer states may contribute to lower levels of monetary charitable contributions. Both of these criticisms miss the point. Average deductible charitable contributions are simply NOT an accurate measure of actual monetary contributions when there are wide variations in the percentage of income-tax filers who itemize contributions. In Connecticut, for example, 40% of filers itemize, whereas in Mississippi only 20% do. This variation results from the fact that charitable contributions are not the only factor that leads to the decision to itemize. Taxpayers in wealthier states will own property with higher values and therefore higher mortgages. They are also more likely to be paying higher deductible state and local taxes (and also receiving greater public services). They are therefore far more likely to itemize their deductions. Consequently, a taxpayer in Connecticut who is only donating $1000 to charity is far more likely to itemize than is a taxpayer from Mississippi. Only those Mississippians who have made larger contributions will find it worthwhile to itemize. Small contributors will be excluded from the Mississippi average, although they are included in the Connecticut average.
Please see the rest of my analysis at
http://www.progressiveindiana.org/node/157
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