I really do get the democrat mindset. I really do believe that Democrats honestly want to help people, and I really think that they are exhausted watching people not "get" or share their values. While I come from a family that was predominantly conservative, but poor (couldn't put me through college... I had to pay for it myself), I've definitely had friends who were worse and better off than me. But you might be surprised to find out that you share the same values, more than you think, but you just don't share the same road to those shared goals. Let me explain.
Conservatives do care and want to help. Check out the following link and read the article to understand why the author wrote the book a couple short years ago:
http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm
Mind you, this site is not politically alffiliated (that is a good thing!) It is all about people being philanthropic (mostly financially philanthropic) and the article says that conservatives are statistically more generous with their money than democrats. So why all the fighting!? Why do Republicans/ conservatives always get a bad rep in this area?
Ideology means everything in this situation. I am going to leave behind the ridiculous fighting comments and just write what I hear people say in this discussion.)
The Democrat mindset:
- We care about people.
- We value good social programs with an agenda that cares for people.
- We need people to give and I don’t think they will unless something bigger than us, like the government, facilitates it.
- God tells us to help our neighbors, and since conservatives talk about God a lot they should be cool with good programs that care for their neighbors.
Let’s take it from the top!
We care about people. I totally believe that. I believe that it is easy to get behind any conversation where we are talking about helping people. The funny thing is that the average person doesn’t want take a phone call from people asking them to give, doesn’t stop to help out someone on the street, doesn’t want to answer a similar solicitation from someone walking up to their house door, or doesn’t want to give at the office (even when the United Way shows up!) but they might use that as an excuse to why they aren’t giving (i.e. “Hey I gave at the office.”)
So how do we all tend to give? Well, we help out our friends or our friend’s friends. If it is personal, then we tend to “show up” and “help out.”
We value good social programs. I can see that and believe this to be true. Surely nobody wants to get behind the opposite: a bad social program. Right? Here is where Republicans and Democrats start to take different roads.
Everyone has to admit that “philanthropy through taxation” makes giving a little easier. (At least) once a year everyone “gives” to those “good social (government-driven) programs” so being philanthropic is dead simple. That is the upside. What is the downside?
The government requires that all non-governmental groups that receive public funds disclose how they spend the money. If they are raising money for a specific purpose, they have to spend it on that specific purpose (no illegal conversion-of-funds please.) They regularly report as to their effectiveness. If they receive money from the government (grant or otherwise) the rules get even more strict! This is a good thing. Let’s compare giving to a non-governmental group to giving to the government through taxation.
The downside: government social programs don’t report effectiveness. Since they run on tax money, they don’t have the same conversion-of-funds issues.
So while the government has these programs, we have no way of knowing (1) if they help, (2) how they help other than providing services (do they help people in such a way as to help people up from needing the services going forward, to being more self sufficient – which many struggling family, if not all of them, would love to be able to do), and (3) if they are effective enough to keep investing in. An government program can tell you, “We gave away (X) services in the last 12 months,” but we don’t know if that is a little or a lot, if it is solving a problem or a stop-gap. As tax-payers, we have to give anyway… it is taxation.
So what about private charities? Private groups still have some of the same problems. Go visit a non-government-driven food reserve / pantry in your town and they will tell you how many families they help each week / month / year. They can tell you if that number is going up or down. They can’t tell you if they are helping people out from needing their services or if they are simply a stop-gap service with a larger problem that isn’t being addressed (unemployment in a town with a poor economy, such that it isn’t the fault of the family needing food.) But here is the difference. Maybe you want to care for people who need a stop-gap service, but you REALLY want to give into a situation that is helping people out of a bad situation and into a better one! In a non-taxation philanthropic situation, then YOU DECIDE! You aren’t being taxed! It’s your money and your desire to help.
The book referenced in the article above challenges Democrats (from someone who looks to Democrats as kindred spirits) to put their money where their mouth is. It is one thing to “give” to tax-based social programming without the kind of accountability demanded of non-government-driven charities, and another thing to give into situations that care and where you can ensure your giving makes a difference.
How many people (Democrats or Republicans) volunteer their time in government-driven social programs? How many volunteer in non-governmental helps services? In government programs, most people are relegated to giving fanancially (through taxation) and not more personally. With non-government-driven charities, you can give financially and of yourself, personally. I hope that you can see why Republicans consider themselves caring and philanthropic. I am willing to extend the same attitude toward Democrats that feel they are caring by investing through taxation for government-driven programs. I hope you can see that it comes down to mostly a philosophy on giving and specifically ideas about how to achieve those goals.
We need people to give and I don’t think they will unless something bigger than us, like the government, facilitates it. Again Republicans tend to like the idea that as individuals… we decide. And statistics bare that out. Republicans do decide how to give, and give big (or bigger than their Democrat counterparts.) It is worth remembering that Republicans are still paying taxes along side their Democrat friends. But they are giving beyond that as well. I can only imagine that as a demographic group, Democrats are waiting for the government to ask for more money in order for them to give more. The upside is that they don’t have to wait for the government to tax them more, for them to be more generous. There are plenty of good social non-government-driven groups that are accountable to report their effectiveness and are waiting for Democrats and Republicans to give more in a spirit of caring.
God tells us to help our neighbors, and since conservatives talk about God a lot they should be cool with good programs that care for their neighbors. As you can see, if what you give is any measure of how well you are hearing the call to care for your neighbor, then conservatives are heeding the call. Again these are only statistics and you might well know Republicans as well as Democrats that are quick to say, “Bah, humbug!” to the philanthropic call. But it is about averages, and the average conservative seems to hear and heed a call to care. What you won’t necessarily see from the Bible is a New Testament call for the God-fearing to give to the government, so it can give to people FOR you. In the New Testament, it is a lot more personal than that. But here is where I would side with Democrats as well as Republicans and say, “Hey, it was meant to be personal!” I don’t think it was God’s plan to have us give all of our philanthropic funds to a large government or a large non-government-driven Charity. I think the God of the Bible would have us save some back to be ready to give to the people who are around us everyday: the down-and-out, the single mom, the struggling family.
In conclusion, I think that I can see that even though Democrats mostly want to give through government-driven programs (mostly, compared to conservatives), that they do really want to give and care for and help people. As well, I believe that just because Republicans are not in favor of government-sanctioned philanthropy, that because they are proven to give privately, they do in fact give, and care and want to help as well.
A final Test in acknowledging the differences in philosophy:
Last year I was discussing the fact that it seemed potentially good that George W. Bush had made it possible for non-government-driven charitable organizations to receive federal funds. I was told that the program was a bit of a flop due to the fact that it was too complicated for non-government-driven charitable organizations to get access to those funds.
Here is the response to that reality from both sides of the political fence.
Democrat:
Well, that demonstrates that the blurring of the philanthropic line is mostly ineffective. Where is that money today? It didn’t seem to benefit those charities out there? It would have been better if those funds had simply remained available to the good social programs that are government-driven, rather than weaken those programs by spreading out those funds in such a complicated and unsuccessful manner.
Republican:
This is a great example of why the money is better off when it is simply not in the hands of the government. Rather than have that money be taxed away from individuals, if those people could have selected responsible charities and given directly, then we could have done away with any government overhead, as well as the red-tape that seems prevalent in the government (at so many levels.) I like it that the government saw that everyday people running charities were a good social philanthropic investment, enough to take taxed money and turn it over to those charities. I just wish that they would see the people they are taxing in the same light and just trust them to be generous with charities directly rather than tax them and then pay themselves to be generous FOR us (and then mess it up.)
