Pedde: Those Unconcerned Conservatives
By Jonathan Pedde, Staff Columnist
Published on Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Over the past week, remarks that Mitt Romney made last May at a fundraiser — in which he appeared to write off 47 percent of the electorate — were met with a mixture of scorn and bewilderment. For many Democrats, these comments nicely dovetailed with previous insinuations that Romney and Paul Ryan are social Darwinists. More broadly, the incident seemed to confirm an oft-repeated narrative on the American left — conservatives simply do not care about the poor.
To be sure, this narrative long predates Romney’s comments. But it is, quite simply, incorrect.
The primary disagreement between American conservatives and liberals is not whether we all have a moral responsibility to help the poor — on this point, nearly everyone would agree. Instead, the real disagreement pertains to the question of whether government is the best means by which to discharge this responsibility. Many conservatives and libertarians would argue that voluntary charitable giving is preferable to government-run programs for two main reasons. First, charitable donations are largely voluntary while taxes are usually coercive. Most libertarians would argue that in a just society, individuals should voluntarily act in an ethical manner, rather than be coerced into ethical behavior. Meanwhile, conservatives have long argued that voluntary charitable giving, as opposed to government-funded welfare spending, is less likely to cause poorer individuals to become permanently dependent on continued assistance. In either case, liberals do not have a monopoly on the desire to improve the well-being of the poor.
This fact is indeed borne out in the real world. Last year, Mitt and Ann Romney gave 29.4 percent of their income to charity, while Barack and Michelle Obama gave 21.8 percent. But these numbers are both significantly higher than previous years, perhaps due to the upcoming election. Over the last 20 years, the Romneys have given 13.5 percent of their income to charity. In comparison, from 2000 to 2004 (the five years before Obama became a senator), the Obamas gave between 0.5 and 1.4 percent of their income to charity each year. While the Obamas are not fabulously wealthy, their family income was never below $200,000 per year in each of those five years. Over the next four years, the Obamas gave away between 4.7 and 6.5 percent of their income.
This difference in voluntary giving between the Romneys and the Obamas is also present between conservatives and liberals in general. According to research conducted over the last decade by Arthur Brooks, who was a public policy professor at Syracuse University, conservatives donate more to charities (both in absolute dollars and as a percentage of their incomes), spend more time volunteering and give blood more often.
Many liberals point out that this is partly due to the fact that conservatives donate more to religious institutions, which is true. However, most religious institutions allocate at least part of their donations to helping the poor and the needy. In addition, according to Brooks’ research, conservatives donate a larger percentage of their incomes to secular causes than liberals do. Finally, as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof pointed out, many liberals often donate to secular organizations — symphonies, museums, universities — that arguably benefit the well-off more than the less-fortunate.
Other people argue that even though voluntary charitable giving is all well and good, the government is able to do certain things that charities simply cannot. This is also true. However, the relevant political question today is not whether we should abolish all government support for the needy, but whether a little more reliance on voluntary generosity would be beneficial.
I think the answer is yes. Perhaps due to the time I spent in East Africa and in India working for a non-profit, I am convinced that more voluntary charitable giving by well-off individuals can be truly beneficial to the rest of the world.
In fact, I would take the argument a step further — as a Dartmouth student, you are indeed a well-off individual by global standards, and thus you have a greater-than-average moral duty to help the less fortunate. By having been accepted to Dartmouth, you are a confirmed member of an elite among an already fortunate portion of the world’s population. To those whom much has been given, much is expected.
So, after you have graduated, when an opportunity arises for you to make a difference, what will your reaction be? Will you reach into your own pocket? Or will you simply call on the government to dig into someone else’s pocket and then pat yourself on the back for having supported social justice?
Wait Mitt’s point was that they were dependent and didn’t take personal responsibility. Not that they should look for a private charity.
By Anonymous on Sep 25 | 1:29 am
Barack’s point is to find “the trick” that enables the government to acquire “pools of money” to redistribute" to “give everyone a shot.” His life has been dedicated to finding tricks to take other people’s money by force. Mitt’s has been dedicated to finding what people like to do by choice and serving the free choices of others. This is liberty vs. bondage.
By Anon on Sep 25 | 10:39 am
Yeah that makes sense, compare who gave more to charity: the guy making $20 million, or the guy making $200,000. Even after charity giving, Romney has more than ten fold of Obama’s income! How can you expect them to give similar charity? Romney should be giving half his income to charity. He’d still be left with $10 million to buy his way into politics. How about you compare tax rates between the two candidates? Kind of opposite of what you would expect, isn’t it.
By Anonymous on Sep 25 | 10:21 pm
Obama has a half brother, George Obama, who lives in a 10ft. by 6 ft. hut in a slum in Nairobi. Barack Obama hasn’t done a thing to help him and does not see him. Obama has an Aunt Zeituni, who lives in public housing in Dorchester, Massachusetts, she is here illegally, but she has been granted the right to stay by a court. Barack Obama has done nothing to help her and does not see her. Obama has an Uncle who is here illegally, working at a liquor store in Framingham, Massachusetts, he has done nothing for him and doesn’t see him. The point that Pedde is making is that conservatives and libertarians, talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to charitable giving. So Anonymous zeroes in on whatever he can take issue with even though it wasn’t the point to make Obama look bad, which he does, forget giving, he is bad…a bad President, The point is that conservatives and libertarians favor free choice, not government force and coercion, as some do. I would expect that Anonymous favors coercion and force to make people do things, rather than to allow them to make their own choices with what they do to help others, just as they make their own choices on what kind of work to do, what kind of degree to pursue and how hard to work at it once they are active in that pursuit. The next step for Obama-Biden-Anonymous is to force people into professions, force them to accept whatever amount of money that those in political power assign to them, tell them how many hours they may work and how hard they may or may not work. This isn’t freedom, this is slavery. Obama could give the same percentage to charity that Romney gives, he doesn’t even in a year that he knows he’s going to be compared to Romney, even for political purposes he only gave 2/3 as much by percentage as Romney did and has family living in dramatic poverty and he doesn’t lift a finger, even enough to write a check or transfer money from his account to theirs. Obama is an arrogant phony and everyone knows it, some just can’t admit it.
By Anon on Sep 26 | 12:56 am
“Other people argue that even though voluntary charitable giving is all well and good, the government is able to do certain things that charities simply cannot. This is also true. However, the relevant political question today is not whether we should abolish all government support for the needy, but whether a little more reliance on voluntary generosity would be beneficial.”
I think this arguement deserves more attention than it got in the article. It would be wonderful if private charity could be the backbone of America’s efforts to alleviate the misery of poverty, but I think in the modern world this is increasingly unfeasible. The act of giving voluntarily is quite noble, but the practical effects on the receiving end are the whole point of the thing, are they not? Charity can particularly excel in targetted efforts against particular problems, but I think the American conception of welfare is one of a social safety net, and with the Charitable systems of today, there will always be cracks. Maybe in the premodern world where the vast majority lived in small villages centered around religious institutions, personal charity could be a relatively comprehensive system. But that’s not the world we live in today, and it seems unlikely that that world is coming back anytime soon. I have a hard time imagining private charity providing widespread access to basic healthcare for the elderly and poor, or assistance for the vast array of chronic debilitating diseases out there, or a support system for those who unable to find jobs in the long term. I am not suggesting that a public solution is the only solution to these problems, and I am definitely not suggesting that the current programs we have for these issues are ideal. But these are some of the largest issues that our current welfare system aims to deal with, and I have not been convinced that private charity could deal with these issues comprehensively if we only would tax less and let the market go to work, especially in the rapidly changing society of today.
As for Romney’s comments, I get the impression that most of the condemnation was not that “conservatives do not care for the poor,” (of course that was certainly implied by some) but the implication that those who recieve government assistance by and large have no desire or drive to help themselves, and instead are content to keep feeding off society. I don’t get the impression that 1) this is largely the case, 2) that this is a productive view to hold of nearly half of American society and 3) that private charity eliminates the allegedly widespread problem of a feeling of entitlement. There will always be those who are unwilling to help themselves and who are ungrateful for the help they recieve. I don’t think these are a majority of the 47 percent Romney mentions, and I am not convinced that they would be any more grateful for private, as opposed to public, charity (unless that gratefulness was a function of the relative sparsity of such private charity, in which case one could hardly argue that the private charity was particularly effective).
Finally, one might argue that if public welfare is indeed meant to be a social safety net, 47% is a whole lot of the population to be recieving assistance (though I think the number may infact represent those who don’t pay income tax, correct me if I’m wrong). Perhaps, and I am sure there is excess in the system as is inevitable in all but the barest-of-bones governments. But I think it is more a function of the American 21st century economy and demographic structure. To take an example, on the basis of healthcare costs alone, losing one’s job can put not just the poorest of families but a large section of the middle class in America in a position of great vulnerability. The insecurities and rapid evolution of today’s economy mean that far more than the bottom 10% may at various points might find themselves in a position were they might need help of some sort, often of a kind that I don’t believe private charity can provide systematically. Rapid change and insecurity is here to stay, and is an essential element of modern prosperity: the lightbulb killed the candle industry. Old skills will inevitably become obsolete, and trying to halt that is both a pipedream in the longterm and harmful to society (though it doesn’t stop some countries in Europe from trying). However, I do think it means that society should do what it can to ease the pain of change for those most affected, and that systematic public assistance provides a far more practical means by which to do so than a patchwork of private charities, no matter their noble intentions.
By R’13 on Sep 26 | 12:04 pm
To R'13: To be clear, the 47% who pay no federal income tax to whom Romney refers also includes people who pay payroll taxes, but don’t earn enough to qualify for federal income tax, as well as the elderly and the working poor who receive tax credits for education and children.
The 47% meme is not actually a valid measure for “freeloaders” who are mooching off the system. Most of them are, indeed, taking responsibility for their lives, and you are absolutely right in saying that we should be supporting, not belittling them. And private charity alone is not going to cut it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/the-47-who-they-are-where-they-live-how-they-vote-and-why-they-matter/262506/
By Anonymous on Sep 26 | 2:27 pm