Interested to read this refinement of the data on American giving. I would add that the pleasure and privilege of giving is yet another arena inequitably distributed among the wealthy and many of the rest of Americans. With the greatest respect to the motives of the wealthy, it is easier to be generous when you have no fears for your own security, and when you are positively motivated by tax advisors and incentives. To me, our failure to allow a simple tax deduction for non-itemizers not only denies the not-for-profit sector significant resources that are needed for work government is increasingly relying on this sector to do, but it denies the vast majority of Americans the simple satisfaction of tracking and taking credit for their own philanthropy. We need to acknowledge and celebrate low- and middle-income givers, and allow them to record their generosity with our own government.
I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. -Mark Twain
COMMENTS
BY Melissa Hines
ON October 19, 2007 07:37 PM
Interested to read this refinement of the data on American giving. I would add that the pleasure and privilege of giving is yet another arena inequitably distributed among the wealthy and many of the rest of Americans. With the greatest respect to the motives of the wealthy, it is easier to be generous when you have no fears for your own security, and when you are positively motivated by tax advisors and incentives. To me, our failure to allow a simple tax deduction for non-itemizers not only denies the not-for-profit sector significant resources that are needed for work government is increasingly relying on this sector to do, but it denies the vast majority of Americans the simple satisfaction of tracking and taking credit for their own philanthropy. We need to acknowledge and celebrate low- and middle-income givers, and allow them to record their generosity with our own government.
I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. -Mark Twain