Tithers are probably more upset about Taxes

[cthulu2016]

There are millions of middle and lower income Americans who give 10% of their income to their church. It is voluntary, but they believe it is what the Bible demands. This is a serious financial burden for many, but they do get to see their money in action. Sometimes building a new church, sometimes going to charities in Africa, sometimes helping people in the congregation who have suffered a terrible set-back.

Tithing provides the other side to the RW culture of selfishness. For every Ayn Randian who wants to see the streets heaped with the corpses of the weak there is a poignantly christian Christian who has great empathy for individual suffering but a great antipathy for the government which aides the poor without also saving their souls.

Such people think their taxes are excessive because they already give so much to help the deserving poor while the government demands more to (in their minds) give to the undeserving poor—to criminals and perverts and fallen women and all those people the government is assumed to help.

It is good to be aware of these typical American tithers. I helps explain the depth of support for the RW obsession with privatization of the safety net. Many people who are far from rich are deeply financially engaged in private charity, and the idea that charity should be private is not absurd to them.

They are mistaken, of course. The social welfare demands of a civilized society cannot be met privately. But it is wrong to assume that the cannon fodder of the RW are not generous. Many of them actually are, but due to their religion have a distorted view of civil governance.

I was thinking about this from speculating about what is on Mitt's tax returns. One thing that will be there is some staggering annual charitable giving... quite possibly more charity given than taxes paid most years. The problem is that unemployment insurance and Medicaid is more important to our social welfare than whatever global charities the Mormon church is involved with.

[FarCenter]

1. Tithes go towards something you believe in; taxes go to whatever.

[JoePhilly]

3. Like roads or unnecessary war in Iraq

[FarCenter]

7. Your 1040 should have a section where you specify which govt programs your taxes go to.

So if not enough people contribute to the F-22 program, it gets killed.

[JoePhilly]

10. I'd support that ...

Side note ... I stopped donating to churches when it became clear I did not support much of what they actually did with the money.

[cthulu2016]

2. PS:

I am an arch atheist, as anyone who has read my posts is aware. But I have known a lot of very good RW Christians who are better people than myself, but who vote wrong and have preposterous ideas about government and society.

[thelordofhell]

4. Unless you're a Mormon

They have people that will audit you to make sure you tithe at least 10%

[pnwmom]

5. Thanks for the thoughtful post. I'd never thought about it this way before.

Some of them might actually be human . . .and humane. Just completely misguided.

[cthulu2016]

6. I have Fundy relatives who are very decent folks

good parents, not at all racist, thoughtful intelligent people... the first folks you'd want to come along if you were in trouble...

But they don't believe in evolution and vote RW every election because of abortion and a belief that social welfare makes people immoral.

[JoePhilly]

11. Have some too ...

And the sad part is ... while they would help you in person, they will screw those they never meet. They also supported the Iraq war. And they have two grown grand children on welfare now. But their grand kids apparently deserve it.

Social welfare is ok for their family, but not for some others who "take advantage of it".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. My explanation for those who are not tithing: the expense of an exurban lifestyle

First of all, to have "the American dream," you have to have a house in the exurbs, and not just any house. It has to be brand new and preferably large. It has to have a two-acre lot, and there must be no sidewalks (an extra assessment) or public transit (which would bring Them to the neighborhood, doncha know?).

Because it is difficult to walk or cycle anywhere and impossible to take transit, you need at least one car. And unless you're affluent enough to have one spouse stay home or lucky enough to have both spouses working at the same place, you'll need two cars. Then, when your children hit the age of 16, they'll need a car, too, and you'll most likely pay for their insurance.

So you're maintaining a much larger house than the one you grew up in and maintaining two or three cars, each of which eats up a lot of gas, because you have to use it to go anywhere except to the mailbox.

That's not even getting into the expenses of raising kids, some of which are necessary, and others of which are really optional.

It's not surprising that such people are easily convinced that they're struggling because of taxes.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

9. All excellent points, no doubt

At the same time, I can understand why people would resent having to downgrade the lifestyle they're used to because they all of a sudden have a bigger tax bill.

Now, if the President stays with only allowing tax cuts to expire for the $250,000+ crowd, probably not as big a deal. But if, as I've seen many here call for, all of the cuts are permitted to expire, we're going to see people at lower income levels have to make some pretty big changes to their lifestyles in order to pay the increased taxes.