A telling article in today’s NYT about the impact of tax breaks and charitable giving. After President Bush’s tax cuts, the highest earners – those with incomes > $200k – gave less to charity than before. Low-income donors “managed to part with a whopping 26 percent of their incomes, while high earners gave 3.4 percent.” This may mean trouble for President Bush’s tax cuts for the highest earners; after all, “maybe they’re not as compassionate as he’d hoped.”
Link: If the I.R.S. Gets Less, Does Charity Get More? – New York Times.
Ben,
Enjoyed reading the Big.Ben Blog. If the wealthy who pay more than their fair share of taxes are less charitable, isn’t the more logical conclusion that they are being just as compassionate through the less productive socialist system that they don’t believe in?
The disputable notion is whether the wealthy pay “more than their fair share.” I think the current income tax system is broke, but I generally agree that the wealthy should shoulder a fair amount of the tax burden. If their tax burden is cut and instead of investing those returned dollars in charitable purposes they are simply pocketing the cash, that could be problematic for the “compassionate conservative” vision.