Conservatives are better at giving

As President Obama harps on greedy “millionaires and billionaires,” one should look at who the generous people in this country are. Arthur Brooks, professor of sociology at Syracuse University, noted in his book, “Who Really Cares,” some interesting facts.

“When I started doing research on charity,” he said, “I expected to find that political liberals — who I genuinely believed cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people.”

He reran the data assuming an error, collected new data, but to his surprise, he saw that it was the conservatives who were more generous. He also saw that most often these conservatives were also religious people, whom he defined as those who went to church or synagogue once a month

Dr. Brooks also examined monetary giving from conservatives as far exceeding that of liberals. Many conservatives tithe to their houses of worship, but they also give more to nonreligious philanthropy such as the American Cancer Society, medical research, colleges, refugees and women’s shelters.

These conservatives also give more of their time to PTA, tutoring after school, do clothing or blood drives. They are also more likely to be generous to the panhandler on the street in need of a meal. If the cashier in a store gives them more change than he should, religious people will be more likely to return the extra. This is not to say that there are not some nonreligious people who are generous but not in the numbers or consistently.

As we enter the election we see that the secularists are generous with other people’s money. For all his talk about “sharing,” President Obama in his 2010 taxes, gave 1 percent of his salary to charity and, in 2011, Vice President Biden gave 1.5 percent.

Priscilla Weese

Wheaton