'Tis the Season of Generosity and Good Will

By James Shott

For those of the Christian faith, Christmas is the raison d'être for their religion, the fulfilling of God’s promise to send His Son to Earth more than 2,000 years ago. Christmas now is celebrated around the world by both Christians and non-Christians through the tradition of gift-giving.  In America, we not only exchange gifts, but also freely give of our time and money to help those less fortunate or who are in trouble during this time of the year.

In every community there are organizations that provide tangible benefits to the public and help others in need through volunteering for service projects and monetary and other contributions. Civic clubs and religious organizations raise and give thousands of dollars in assistance every year for medical care, food pantries, weatherization and home heating in the winter, building and repairing homes for less fortunate people and families, student tutoring and scholarships, animal welfare and spay/neuter programs, arts and cultural programs, assisting disabled persons, assisting police and fire fighters to purchase needed equipment, among other forms of aid.

Americans are regarded as the most generous people in the world. We give unselfishly to religious and civic organizations that support our charitable interests to help people both at home and across the globe.

In 2010 Americans donated more than $290 billion to their favorite causes, and four out of every five dollars donated came from individuals and bequests. The breakdown of charitable giving is: individuals, $211.8 billion; foundations, $41 billion; bequests, $22.8 billion; and corporations, $15.3 billion.

Americans donated $23.7 billion in corporate stock; $7.6 billion in clothing, and land valued at $4 billion. Leading the list of recipients of this generosity by a wide margin were churches and religious organizations at $100.6 billion, followed by educational entities, $41.7 billion; foundations, $33 billion; human services, $26.5 billion; organizations benefitting public and societal needs, $24.2 billion; health organizations, $22.8 billion; international affairs, $15.8 billion; arts, culture and humanities, $13.3 billion; and environmental issues and animal welfare, $6.7 billion.

And when disaster strikes anywhere in the world, we respond. We stepped up when the tsunami struck Japan, when an earthquake rocked Haiti. At here at home when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2006, more than $4 billion was raised to assist victims. We are still giving to victims since super storm Sandy struck in October.

However, as generous as the American people are, the economic crisis has significantly affected charitable giving, which remains $12 billion less today than when the recession began in 2008, and is predicted not to improve anytime soon. That is a real problem for the country: The nonprofit sector generates nearly 6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, and pays $668 billion in wages and benefits to its 13.5 million employees.

The fiscal cliff further threatens charitable giving, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill consider capping or eliminating deductions, and a change to the charitable deduction could severely damage non-profits and the charitable work that generates enormous goodwill locally and globally.

A 2009 study by the Center on Philanthropy showed that the proposal to raise the marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent on those earning $250,000 or more and cap the charitable tax deduction at 28 percent would precipitate a 2.1 percent decline in giving, which works out to a $5 billion decrease.

However, a proposal by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force would be far worse. It proposes to eliminate the charitable deduction altogether and replace it with a credit like the one used in the United Kingdom. Applying this practice to the U.S. level of charitable giving would cost $260 billion, devastating charities across America.

The Charitable Giving Coalition urged both President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to protect the charitable tax deduction as they deal with the fiscal cliff facing America. The charitable deduction encourages individuals to give to those in need, and to give more than they would otherwise give by allowing them to offset some of their tax obligation with charitable contributions. Data suggests that every dollar a donor claims in tax relief for charitable donations produces three dollars of public benefit.

The significance of the charitable work of American non-profits is one thing that sets us apart from less charitable nations. It is a reflection of the generous heart of America, and the charitable tax deduction helps to fuel that generosity. That is why it must be protected. If we fail to stop this thoughtless process, Americans will be substantially hampered in their financial support of people in need, and we will all be the worse for it.

To the extent that government continues replacing the work of charitable organizations with taxpayer funded government programs, or impedes the charitable impulses of the American people with short-sighted tax policies, those of us who give to charity lose the ability to decide which projects and causes receive our financial support.

And as the failure to control profligate government spending continues to be ignored in favor of political considerations, the likelihood increases that charitable deductions will be targeted to help raise revenue to feed the government’s spending addiction.

Cross-posted from Observations

Looking at the United States of America by the numbers

By James Shott

As the end of 2012 draws near, here are some interesting and revealing statistics about our country.

The Gross Domestic Product Growth Rate has been anemic all year, but had its biggest increase in the 3rd quarter, rising 2.7 percent. That was double the 2nd quarter’s 1.3 percent, and beat the 1st quarter’s 1.9 percent. From 1947 until 2012, the United States GDP Growth Rate averaged 3.2 percent.

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In 2011 the population of the U.S. was 313.8 million and 153.6 million Americans were in the labor force. The nation produced total GDP of $15.1 trillion, roughly $49,000 in per capita GDP.

The U.S. Treasury collected tax revenue of a little more than $2.3 trillion and as a percent of GDP the economy is taxed at slightly more than 15 percent. However, the federal government spent about $3.8 trillion, creating a budget deficit of more than $1.3 trillion, or 8.63 percent of GDP. Each man woman and child citizen’s share of the cost of government is more than $12,000.

Currently, the national debt is roughly $16.3 trillion, which works out to about $51,000 per man, woman and child. This year’s federal budget deficit adds $3,500 or so of additional debt per citizen.

* * *

The November jobs report listed 146,000 new jobs and a U-3 Unemployment Rate of 7.7 percent, two-tenths lower than the October figure. Unfortunately, this news is not as good as it appears. To have a truly meaningful effect on unemployment, more than 300,000 new jobs must be created each month. The Labor Department revised downward new job numbers in October from 171,000 to 138,000, and from September in 148,000 to 132,000.

The drop in the unemployment rate resulted not from lots of people going back to work, but because 350,000 people dropped out of the workforce.

The Labor Force Participation Rate dropped from 63.8 percent to 63.6 percent. The 146,000 new jobs have a much greater effect on a smaller labor force than on a larger labor force. If the labor force remained the same as it was in January 2009, U-3 unemployment would be 10.7 percent. The more accurate U-6 Unemployment Rate, which includes not only those working and those looking for work, but also those who have become discouraged and given up looking for jobs, is 14.6 percent for November.

* * *

In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments. By November, the total number of people employed had climbed to 143,262,000, an overall increase of 847,000 in the six months since June. In the same six-month period the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall.

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Back in July of 2008 candidate Barack Obama said this about the $4 trillion in debt that we incurred under the Bush administration: “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”

According to the U.S. Treasury, on July 2, 2001, the national debt was approximately $5.7 trillion. On inauguration day 2009, the national debt stood at $10.6 trillion. Last Thursday, it stood at $16.3 trillion. That means the debt has increased $5.7 trillion during Mr. Obama’s first four years, and that is more than all presidents through Bill Clinton, and the first five months of George W. Bush’s tenure. In the name of U.S. taxpayers Mr. Obama has borrowed more than $49,500 per man, woman and child.

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Inflation in October was 2.2 percent, up from September at 2.0 percent, August at 1.7 percent and July at 1.4 percent. The highest level of inflation since 2000 was 5.6 percent in July of 2008.

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Are we drowning in regulations? Ayn Rand’s classic Atlas Shrugged in paperback has 1,088 pages. The 2011 Federal Register totals 82,419 pages, nearly 76 times more than Ms. Rand’s book. A popular estimate of the cost of regulations on the economy is $1.75 trillion annually, which is nearly 76 percent of total amount of tax revenue collected last year.

* * *

In 1913 the U.S. tax code was 400 pages. Today, it’s more than 73,000 pages, which means we added on average 730 new pages each year. It is estimated that U.S. taxpayers pay $431.1 billion annually, or 19 percent of total tax revenue collected last year, just to comply with and administer the U.S. tax system.

Cross-posted from Observations

Government “Controlled” Healthcare – vs - Government Run Census

Government “Controlled” Healthcare - vs - Government Run Census
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Allow me to relate to you a story of an American citizen’s experience with the 2010 Census:

When the census began earlier this year, he did not receive the form. Then, if you recall, the government said there would be a second mailing. He did not receive the form in the second mailing. Soon afterwards he saw a notice in his regional newspaper that informed those having still not received their census forms to call a certain telephone number and request a form be sent to them. So, as a dutiful citizen, he called the number and made his request. In a couple of days, or so, he received the form. Within 48 hours he sat down and took the 5 to 6 minutes required to fill out the form and he mailed it back to the US Census Bureau.

It was finally done, he thought. . Thinking that all was well with the US Census, and himself he put the matter out of mind.

A few days ago, his wife found a notice stuck in their front door. It was a notice that a census taker had tried to contact them and was unable to do so and it gave a number to call. This time he decided to wait until the first day of the coming workweek. Since it was already Saturday, there did not seem to be a rush.

The very next day, which happened to be a Sunday, a knock came at his front door. When he opened it, there stood what he instantly recognized as a census taker dressed in shorts and a tank top and carrying a clipboard.

He explained that he had been missed by both mailings, had called, received a census form, had filled it out, and returned it. The census taker was polite but asked if he would mind answering the questions for him anyway.

As it was a Sunday, and this particular American citizen is, at heart, a peaceable fellow (especially on a Sunday morning) he agreed. They sat down and the census taker asked the very same questions this American citizen had already answered and sent to Washington. They shook hands and parted company.

Soon after hearing this story, I began to think, which, as regular readers already know, can be dangerous. I thought: This is THE CENSUS! It only takes place every TEN YEARS. Then why the dickens was it so confounded screwed-up? I mean, its not like it was done “off the cuff.” There is a good ten years between the taking of the censuses to iron out the problems, and be reasonably certain it will go off with a minimal amount of glitches. In the case cited above it resembled more of, what we used to call (in the military) a “cluster****!”

But, then again, there is the old expression that seems apropos to this situation: “Close enough for government work.”

This whole experience is worrisome for me on two fronts. One: unless some one in DC catches the error, this American citizen’s state will wind up with at least two more citizens on its rolls than it should have. Depending upon how many times this has happened nationwide, the Lord, Himself, will only know how many American citizens there actually are. Remember these numbers are often used to determine the letting of government funds and services to the several states, and cities, etc. A REASOANABLY accurate counting is extremely necessary.

Then on front number two: Horrors of horrors, I thought, this is the same government to which we now, by law, must entrust our health, indeed, our LIVES!

It is one thing to have a screw-up while gathering and adding numbers for a census. It is quite another thing to entrust our lives to the same government’s doctors in a hospital or clinic run by (or controlled by) that very same government. This is a hellish nightmare!

Remember, too, this is the same government that could not run a postal service when private companies all around them were running circles around them delivering packages on time, at a reasonable rate, and making huge profits for their businesses.

You are only kidding yourself if you actually believe that ObamaCare will be anywhere near as efficient -- or the quality of care will come anywhere near that which we enjoy today.

Rationing is a given. Healthcare will cost we Americans far, far, more than we are paying now -- and for what? Less healthcare, rationing of healthcare, fewer doctors and hospitals resulting in longer waits just for the privilege of seeing a doctor who is, for all intents and purposes, a government employee. As I said, it is going be a hellish nightmare.

The ONLY alternative we have, until we can gain indisputable control of a veto proof Congress, is to defund and make every effort to repeal ObamaCare.

Remember in November!

J. D. Longstreet