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Originally Posted by ERCougar
Because it's a concrete example of what people will do with tax relief. They can claim all they want, but when it comes down to it, they'll keep it for themselves, and the evidence bears this out.
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Bull. How people spent their tax rebate is no "proof" of how charitable people are generally. You're taking a very narrow slice of income and generalizing from it, and doing so quite poorly.
I wish I had the studies in front of me ... Googling quickly brought up one.
Here's one abstract for a study that says 2/3 of households report charitable contributions, and that the totals add up to 2% of GDP. The full PDF is
here.
Some snippets:
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The estimates suggest that personal income is a key factor affecting household giving in the United States. Controlling for other determinants of giving, the model suggests that an increase of 10% in average personal income increases average giving per tax filer in a state by approximately 8%.
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The model also indicates that (independent of personal income) net capital gains affect giving. More specifically, the estimates suggest that an increase of 10% in average capital gains increases average giving in states by about 2%.
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It's apparent that when people are allowed to keep more of their money, they are more charitable. That's far more concrete evidence than your anecdotal experience of surveying those around you (didn't you decry my anecdotes?).
Maybe you just associate with selfish people.