OT: Conservatives more generous than Leftiies

I can tell you as a former Finance Committee Chairman of my church that those who contributed a larger percentage of their salary were conservative. Every year we have pledges made to the church to figure out how we will fund the annual budget. As Chairman I got to see the pledges as they were processed and I knew the folks and their political leanings. Granted this is not a scientific analysis but all in all I knew where the church's income source was during that time period.

You don't know what other charities anyone supports. The church gets a fraction of what I give.

My wife is a Ph.D. statistician. She will tell you that most studies such as this are flawed. Especially likely here because instead of being published where it could be reviewed by peers, he is out to make a buck. Also he is an economist, not a Ph.D. statistician. His analysis would be highly suspect. Also, people with large salaries often work for big corporations where there is tremendous pressure to give large sums yearly the "United Way" whether you want to or not. That by itself could make his conclusions in correct as far as why people are giving.

I would be interested in what you support. When you say the church gets a fraction, does that mean less than 1% of your income? I have managed to make it up to 7.5% of mine.

I give about 5 to 6%. The church gets about 2%, except in years when we've got a capital campaign going, then they get more. The rest goes to PBS, NPR, United Way (well, my wife does that, not me), Scouts (Boy and Girl), the local food shelf, various school projects, local museums, some of the colleges and universities that we or the kids attended.

I had no idea corporations are conservative or liberal or that they donate million whether they want to or not LOL

mike hunt

I would think really hard before giving money to large private universities. If you compare them to other charities, the reserves they keep (they call them "endowments") are outrageous.

Most lefties are penny clutching dweebs. Ask any waiter/waitress. Why do you think they want to raise taxes?Somehow they think that someone else will be paying. Since so many feed at the government trough, they think the tax base is infinite. Ask the Dums to define middle class. The reality of their tax the rich plans is that anyone making over 30k is rich, so tax'em. They resent a hard working person making more than they do while they do little to help their own sorry lazy selves. Helping the poor means creating govt. jobs for themselves so they work in their sweat suits and get fat behind a desk doing nothing but thinking of what to order for lunch.

because they EARN their money...

asshats like "kenny boy" lay blew millions apon millions of stolen dollars.

Wrong. They have the government take it away from others and give it to them.

Then why the heck do I go to work every day?

It's not like we have free latte's here or anything like that.

Since when is giving money to a Church charitable? They spend that money on the needy or the community about as much as a country club does. Few exceptions, but certainly no church associated with the conservative right. Church's are just social clubs for the self righteous.

You are so wrong as usual. My church is famous for its outreach all over locally, regionally, overseas, and as of last year Mississippi.

Locally we provide the homeless shelter during the winter months, we have a food pantry for people who need food, we provide rooms for support groups.

Regionally we send mission teams to Tennessee and other parts of Virginia to build homes and repair structures for the people of the Appalachians.

We used to send two mission teams to Honduras after Hurricane Mitch devastated that country for years until we decided to support Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. We support a missionary in Vietnam who is bringing the message to the people of that country.

These are just some of the direct projects we are involved in, not to mention the money we send to the United Methodist Conference of Virginia for more organized support all around the world. After the tsunami destroyed Indonesia the United Methodist Conference on Relief was the first international organization there providing relief and other such things.

Why don't you investigate personally what churches do for others before making remarks that make you look stupid. Your prejudice against religion shouldn't blind you to the immense good it does for people without creating a dependent welfare system like the government social services does. People give of their money and time freely to churches instead of having it taken away by the government.

But it's OK to have welfare for Churches?

Tell me what percentage goes to these projects and why that is better than say Mercy Corps, that have over 90% of donations go directly to the needy. The token projects that most churches participate in pale to what a Mercy Corp does. Like I said, donating to a Church is a waste of money. Money can be used far more efficiently leaving them out.

PROVE it!

You seem to not get it. The money is only one way of helping the needy. The vast bulk is the volunteers that put up their own time and expenses to be of service to the indigent. Money donated to churches is used for a variety of things -- administration, missions, overhead, etc. As a former Finance Committee Chairman I can tell you the budget of our church was about 30% for missions, but we constantly had other fund raisers such as dinners or garage sales or one-time donations for specific missions.

Churches are in the business of saving souls. That includes administering to members and non-members. Recruiting actual bodies into service work is much more difficult than getting money. However a church member *shows* his faith by applying works according to the book of James. They don't wait for someone else to do it, such as the government or an outside entity.