Republicans Give More Money to Charities than Democrats

[Pryderi]

So, I went and visited my parents for Father's Day and had to endure a number of political digs.

When my mother said that I had to research.

Looks like it turns out to be true and it looks as though religion plays a large part.

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/republican-states-give-more-to-charity-than-democratic-states-cms-19923

Based on a study of the 2008 data from the Internal Revenue Service of taxpayers, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported, "The eight states where residents gave the highest share of income to charity went for John McCain in 2008. The seven-lowest ranking states supported Barack Obama."

The Chronicle looked at those who made $50,000 or more a year and itemized deductions.

The study found that middle-class Americans (households with earned income between $50,000 and $75,000) were more generous than households that earned $100,000 or more.

A key factor in charitable giving was religion.

"Religion has a big influence on giving patterns," said the Chronicle. "Regions of the country that are deeply religious are more generous than those that are not."

[OriginalGeek]

1. Do they count their tithes as charitable giving?

Because I don't.

[NYC_SKP]

2. This only shows scant correlation suggesting the claim. It's not proof by a long shot.

McCain state having a higher rate of giving doesn't mean that the people who voted for McCain were the givers, it could be the other way around.

Also, it doesn't take into account cheaters and liars.

Maybe Republicans are just bigger fatter liars and lie about their giving.

[denverbill]

3. I read that more as lower income people are more generous and Republicans tend to earn less.

[Scuba]

4. Not all charities are created equally, nor is all giving. Giving cash to the symphony is nice....

... but if you're donating .000001% of your vast riches to an entity that spends it's donations delivering entertainment to wealthy people, I'm not impressed.

Volunteering every Saturday at a soup kitchen, on the other hand, is far more worthy of a tax break.

[Kali]

5. I know we are more civil here, but did you mean to post this in the Lounge?

[JoeyT]

6. Yeah, if you count money given to churches as "charitable".

From the article:

The nation's most generous state was Utah, where Mormonism teaches tithing and the "typical household claimed charitable contributions totaling 10.6 percent of discretionary income."

So yeah, if you're counting money given to keep gay people from being able to marry as "charity" then sure.

[Populist_Prole]

7. It's an angle conservatives have always liked to use a lot

The gist being, directed to those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale ( the 47 percent? ) in so many words: "Seek not an improvement in your position by fighting the fat-cats and their minions, but rather, attempt to curry their charity....Oh, and pray a lot....solving your issues through prayer is important"

They will then show us examples of the rich giving large sums of money to charity, then curtly remind us to continue paying no attention to the man behind the curtain.