Everyone knows that Republicans are greedy and hate the poor, while Democrats love them and want to help them... right? Well, not according to The Catalogue for Philanthropy's "Generosity Index 2003". As Opinion Journal notes,
In news sure to depress those for whom Republican stinginess and antipathy for the less fortunate is an article of faith, the Massachusetts Catalogue for Philanthropy has just released its Generosity Index 2003, which ranks states not just by how much their residents give per capita but also by how much they give relative to what they earn. As OpinionJournal.com reader Gabriel Openshaw pointed out to us, the resulting index shows that the top 20 states all went for George W. Bush in the 2000 election--while 15 of the 20 least generous went for Al Gore. Maybe, he suggests, the difference is that those in red states are more generous with their own money while those in blue states are more likely to be generous with other people's money.
In fact, the method used to calculate the
"Generosity Index" is so flawed, it's amazing
that anyone would repost it, much less create it.
See the article at the URL attached to this
message (
http://home.netcom.com/~rdavis2/genindex.html ).
I suppose that the results could be meaningless if there actually were numbers of the type required. However, I imagine that the distributions didn't work out to perfectly thwart the usefulness of the results.
Nevertheless, Mr. Davis, you're correct that although the GI may be interesting, it's not really definitive. I don't think it's useless, however.
Agreed. As an additional note, I just finished exchanging emails with George McCully, who is a trustee of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation and coordinates the Catalogue for Philanthropy, the group that created the Generosity Index. Concerning the Wall Street Journal article that suggested that the Generosity Index showed Republicans to be more generous, he stated:
"First, I think the Wall Street Journal point was, and was intended to be taken as, a joke. Everyone knows why the Bible Belt and Utah give more—it's owing to their evangelical Protestant tithing, and possibly to southern/western warmth."
Hence, while one may agree or disagree with whether and/or why certain states may make more charitable contributions, the coordinator of the organization that created the index clearly feels that the suggestion that it has political significance is not to be taken seriously and is, in fact, a joke.
That's pretty interesting. It sounds like his quote confirms the idea that Republicans give more to charity, considering that most evangelicals and Mormons are Republican. Why is that politically insignificant? Mr. McCully may dismiss giving to churches as unimportant, but the numbers still indicate to me that Republicans give more money to charities than Democrats do.
Once again, that's flawed logic. Even if evangelicals and Mormons do give more to charity, that tells you absolutely nothing about how much non-evangelical, non-Mormon Republicans give. Suppose that they are all Scrooges (which I don't believe). Then the charity given by the evangelicals and Mormons would be more than offset by them. You need a very careful and rigorous analysis of the data to validate one view or the other. As shown previously, the Generosity Index is neither of these.
Obviously the study only gives generalities, but in general it indicates that Republicans give more on average than Democrats. The break-down of the specifics below that aren't visible, you're right, but no one claimed otherwise.
republicans do give more
they are also more apt to write off that giving on thier taxes.
hence who is really doing the giving?
Michele: I don't understand your question. Are you implying that because charitable donations are tax-deductible that they don't count as "giving"? If it's not the giver that's giving, then who is? Do you think the government is entitled to our money and that if we donate it elsewhere that we're stealing money from the government? That's absurd.