Mark Hyman (Sinclair): "Angry left among the least generous people in US"

[high density]

The Sinclair Broadcast Group corporate douchebag continues his rants against anybody to the left of Bill Kristol:

The Angry Left is still steaming over the presidential election results. And they found their scapegoat. They point to polls naming "moral values" as an issue that helped decide the outcome. But they ridicule what red-staters see as moral values and in their arrogant and superior way, the Angry Left substitute their own topics they claim to represent real moral values: unjust war, tax relief and indifference to the environment.
...
According to the Catalogue for Philanthropy, the top 24 most generous states in giving to charitable causes are all red states. Leading the nation in generosity is Mississippi, which averaged $4,484 in charitable donations per taxpayer. Mississippi is also the bottom-ranked of all 50 states in terms of annual income. Nine of the top 10 most generous states gave more than the national average of $3,455 in charitable donations.

The Catalogue's Generosity Index is derived by comparing a state's rank based on adjusted gross income with its ranking in charitable giving as noted on itemized tax returns. For example, top ranked Mississippi is number 50 in income and number five in giving. Cellar dweller New Hampshire is number nine in income but number 48 in charitable giving.
...
So while the Angry Left arrogantly thinks of itself as people of compassion - meaning those who help the less fortunate -- the reality is they are among the least generous people in America. This certainly explains their track record of voting for the candidates of special interests and privileges.

More: http://www.newscentral.tv/uploads/franchise/point/point-20041123.shtml

I don't know what to say about this guy. I wished that because of the results of the election he would shut him up about liberals, but instead it has gotten even worse. :shrug:

[Hobarticus]

1. Blue-staters are paying for red-staters' social programs as it is...

What more do we need to do?

[Gnaeus]

2. This man is a nut.

How anyone could call Democrats pawns of "special interests" must not have looked at the Prez.

[aquart]

8. The man is insufficiently taxed.

And he clearly doesn't work for a living because he has so much free time for this garbage.

[flyingfysh]

3. that Mississippi number is misleading

Most of the "$4484 in charitable donations" is undoubtedly due to the practice of "tithing" practiced in many fundamentalist churches, and the charitable organizations are in fact the churches.

[tsuki]

24. Which for the most part, live by the creed, charity begins at home (the

church.)

[DBoon]

25. "charity" enforced by the threat of an eternity in hell

is hardly voluntary

[Quill Pen]

27. I don't believe church donations are deductible...

I give to my church, and there's a blurb down at the bottom of the form about how donations to the church aren't tax-deductible.

Somebody correct me if that ain't the case.

But I wonder if donations to outfits like Operation Rescue, "crisis pregnancy centers," and family-values promoting orgs that are obviously faith-based are deductible. Because I'll bet that's where a lot of that money's going.

[bobbieinok]

38. tithe, money in collection plate can be listed on deductions page

as I understand it .... if church loses tax-exempt status, then this money would no longer be deductible

[AliciaKeyedUp]

42. Church giving

It can and does count. We all pick charities we support. Churches continue to support everything from feeding the poor to AIDs outreach.

[kcwayne]

43. Giving to churches is not the same as giving to charity

My wife tithes for her church, which is a major bone of contention. She gives 2,000 a year to her church and has contributed $0 to our daughter's college fundaaaarghhh, and she only makes $10,000 per year... aaaaarrrggggghhhh).

She started tithing when the church decided it needed to expand its building to the tune of 2.5 million dollars. I don't know the church budget, but my wife is in the middle of a number of their true charity operations like helping homeless people and such. But it is very clear that the amount the church puts into humanitarian efforts pales in comparision to what they just spent on their elaborate building expansion. Everywhere I look (in Indianapolis) I see similar large scale multi-million dollar real estate projects to build temples. And I see no visible sign of a multi-tens-of-thousands charity project. So I am unimpressed by the faith based charity initiatives and put little stock into charitable contributions given to churches.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. That's funny

I know of a lot of liberals who donate money time, and creativity to help causes such as Refugees International. This guy is in a fantasy land.

[JaneDoughnut]

5. Let's just accept that he's a dipshit

And prove him wrong. Ask your families to give to charity instead of buying Christmas gifts this year.

Plus, I've noticed a lot of the donations of my choice (like, say, Public Radio) are not considered non-profits and aren't write-offs - maybe that kind of stuff doesn't get counted.

[aquart]

6. Define "special interests".

If he were to say that special interests are the poor, the elderly, the homeless, the ill, the orphaned, the talented, the bright seeking higher education.....I dunno, think the picture he's painting might look different?

What did he donate to? Wealthy politicians? Wealthy churches? Think tanks that write papers proving how generous he is?

[billbuckhead]

9. It's church donations which almost none go to real charity

Mores goes to the preacher's Lexus or SUV.

[Fovea]

16. That's unfair.

Jesus needs a shiney big car.
Mohammed got a bitchin fast bike, and
Vishnu just got a bus.

[DBoon]

26. or to some creationist institute

eom

[colonel odis]

7. you're right. he's gotten worse since the election. last week, he

had an editorial saying that if the democrats had run gephardt, they'd have won the white house.

he needs an ass-whupping in the worst way, but perhaps we should just fill his mailbox with emails.

on edit: the bio of him on their website seems a little odd. i wonder if anyone's curious enough to check those facts and see if they're true.

[Cerridwen]

10. And how many on the left work in non-profits rather than

donate to charities, or in fact do both?

And how many on the right work in non-profits of social, human, animal, environmental, worker's rights issues?

edited to add: many of us walk our talk not just throw money at it.

[madmom]

11. My reply.. I give plenty of...

time food, clothes,etc. but I won't give money because I think the ceo's of these organizations are rich enough!!!

[tk2kewl]

12. what is the source of his figures?

does he include the arts as charities?
does he include universities?
does he include environmental causes?

he probably doesn't include many environmental groups because they are politically active and donations to them are therefore not tax deductible. But in the climate of massive environmental legislation many people feel it is necessary to support such groups.

I wouldn't buy this analysis given the source. A large part of the purported charity from the red states is probably lining the pockets of fundie tv ministries and the like.

[charlie]

20. Itemized deductions

as a percentage of income.

http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/generosity_index/2004_us_notes.php
http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/db/generosity.php?year=2004

Thing is, if I'm not mistaken, most people don't deduct charitable giving from their taxes. I know I don't.

[China_cat]

13. Maybe it looks like that

because a lot of us don't take the income tax deduction for contributions...feeling that it isn't really legitimate charity if you get it back later on. (or, more the republican form of charity, giving deliberately in order to lessen your tax burden.)

[gratuitous]

14. For every dollar I made in 2003 . . .

I gave away 40 cents. That's pre-tax money. What was YOUR record, Mr. Hyman?

[Sleepless In NY]

21. He doesn't want to deal with the moral issue, because its bs

and he knows it. They have no real claim on the morality issue, statitics show divorces, teen pregnancies & veneral diseases higher in Red States. And he also knows Blue Staters are getting fed up, and talking about cutting off the "welfare" . Let him sweat, and worry about that.

[Squeech]

15. Ask any waitron

Repukes tend to tip poorly.

[Quill Pen]

30. If they tip at all...

I help moderate a social club Yahoogroup in my area. We have kicked out a number of members over the years for being general-purpose a$$holes. I swear, dunno if it's coincidence or what, but 97% of the invertebrates we eighty-sixed loudly and publicly declared their no-tipping policy early on in our acquaintance. And most of them were 'Pugs or Libertarians.

Some of the Libertarians we had were amusing as hell. They lived with their parents, well into their 30s. "Everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be responsible for themselves! Except me, of course."

[SammyWinstonJack]

17. This moran assumes everyone living in a Red State and making

charitable donations are all repubs? Guess he didn't consider that possibility that some of the people making donations might be "Angry Liberals".

[DoBotherMe]

18. He's using weasel words

According to the Catalogue for Philanthropy.... Leading the nation in generosity is Mississippi which averaged $4,484 in charitable donations per taxpayer. Mississippi is also the bottom-ranked of all 50 states in terms of annual income. Nine of the top 10 most generous states gave more than the national average of $3,455 in charitable donations.

The Catalogue's Generosity Index is derived by comparing a state's rank based on adjusted gross income with its ranking in charitable giving as noted on itemized tax returns. For example, top ranked Mississippi is number 50 in income and number five in giving.

Here is raw data
http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/generosity_index/2004_Generosity_Index.xls

[Hamlette]

28. interesting stuff at the catalogue for philanthropy

it is relative to income. What I want to know is the raw numbers. Know where I can get them? I can't believe each taxpayer (head of household?) in Mississippi gave $4,484.

[charlie]

33. I can't believe $3455

is the national average. Seems way too high.

In any case, lumping all residents into red/blue categories by state is something you do for the electoral college, not for this sort of statistical analysis. How does he know it isn't "bleeding heart" liberals in each state giving disproportionately, skewing the numbers upward?

[DoBotherMe]

36. The numbers are aggregates

However in MS 20% of taxpayers donate enough to itemize and in NH 32% of taxpayers donate enough to itemize; so on average more NH citizens donate to charity than do those in MS. This guy is nuts, spin, spin, spin...heck we can all do it.

[high density]

31. Thanks for the info

I think it's a flawed analysis since he assumes that all charitable donations are done for tax writeoff purposes.

[Quill Pen]

32. If MS is also ranked lowest out of 50 in annual income...

...it's a mighty fine bet that the only taxpayers able to donate at all in that state are the very richest. Remember, $4,464 is only an AVERAGE.

To be ranked last in annual income, you'd have to have an awful lot of people in MS making about the same or a few dollars more than that $4,464 figure. You can betchersweetass these are not the people donating $4,464.

What that says to me is that in MS, at least, there's evidence of an extremely wide gap between rich and poor.

My next question would be, "so, if you guys are giving so damn much, how come MS is still poverty-stricken?"

[leesa]

19. They hand over their donations to their Fundie churches. So What!

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Yes, well when it comes to greed, blue states have a lot of catching

up to do.

[Anakin Skywalker]

23. Typical Rightwing @$$hole!

Definging "charity" solely in terms of MONEY! These conservatives are fixated on money.

[Blue_Tires]

29. Sinclair among the biggest fuckheads in America!

[Little Wing]

34. That's a dubious interpretation of raw data.

It may well be that the bluest of the blue states and regions have better social programs and less of a need for charitable giving.

[zbdent]

35. Okay, here's a dissection point - the point was made

average amount given to charity PER TAXPAYER.

So, the right keep pointing out that the "poor don't pay taxes!".

Ergo, the amount given to charity is skewed to represent a larger average, similar to the Bill Gates effect (Bill Gates walks into a soup kitchen with 15 people in it. Someone stands up and says "Hey, on the average, we're now all millionaires!")

So, factor in the fact that, yes, working poor do give to charities, and many working poor families who "don't pay taxes" are actually getting money back because of their deductions (billy, joe, jim, bob, peggy, and sue).

[juliagoolia]

37. He simply likes to skew data

What he left out.

These people are also the least educated. Giving to support your church so that they can be on TV, but big cars, build big buildings and send ministers to IRAQ and other MUSLIM nations to save souls is not generous.

ITS ARROGANT.

Who are they giving to??????????

What these guys are masters at doing is twisting facts to make them look like what they want them to look like.

We do things like recycle (thats not going to be tax deductible)
We adopt kids
We help our parents
We volunteer time
We do a lot of things that are not measured in charity or money gifts.
We sit in trees to save redwood forests.
Compassion is not measured by this idiot or the catalog.


A crap load of people lie on their income tax too.
Lets find our own facts and PUBLISH them all over the friggen internet.

[Zorra]

39. So they give lots of money to the KKK, the Heritage Foundation, and the

American Enterprise Institute.

It's not what you give, it's who you give it to that counts.

[Starlight]

40. He's only counting donations that were deducted from income taxes.

I make lots of donations but I don't itemize so he'd count me as giving *zero.*

[NewJeffCT]

41. The catalogue is also way off base - uses only ITEMIZED deductions

If you actually look at the table they used, the Catalogue only takes into account itemized deductions (those totaling 2% or more of your adjusted gross income)

So, if 99 out of 100 people in New England give 1.5% of their AGI to charity and 1 out of 100 gives 2% or more, only 1 in 100 make the Catalogue's list.

however, if 2 in 100 in Mississippi give 2% or more and the other 98 out of 100 give nothing, Mississippi comes out twice as good as New England.

[BiggJawn]

44. If I gave almost $5,000 in charitables, *I* would be eligible for services

Hyman, you ass-wipe, ever stop to think that when people don't have anything left after paying for shit in this "Recovering Economy" that they're not going to be giving?

No, guess not. Hyman doesn't know any "people like me", I'll bet....

[ProfessorGAC]

45. I Know What To Say About This Guy!

He's an idiot. Almost 80% of that charitable giving is in donations to churchs. However, the recipients of those donations are mostly the donors. Paying for your own minister, the maintenance of your own church building, adding to the coffers for church activities, et al, does NOT constitute charity. That's just donating money to your own self-interest. It's also SOCIALISM! (Wonder how this idiot would like hearing that!)

I saw something in the Tribune about a week ago (IIRC) that only about 20% of church donations go to charitable activities beyond the direct congregation. (That seems logical, though i have no data to prove or disprove.)

So, take all those church donation numbers and multiply by 0.2, and then do the list of most giving states. Methinks it would look RADICALLY different.
The Professor