In the new era of hope and change

will liberals be more generous and sacrificial? I thought some of the campaign and inaugural remarks were insulting. I'm not ashamed of my country; I'm not looking forward to the government redistributing more of my income. But that seems to be the theme. Conservatives have always been more generous than liberals, so when I read this stuff "new era of responsibility," or "change has come to America," "expanding and improving volunteer opportunities," and "call upon all of our citizens to serve one another" I wonder if he missed d'Tocqueville in history class. I doubt that he has a clue what is going on beyond the beltway.

In May of last year, the Gallup polling organization asked 1,200 American adults about their giving patterns. People who called themselves "conservative" or "very conservative" made up 42% of the population surveyed, but gave 56% of the total charitable donations. In contrast, "liberal" or "very liberal" respondents were 29% of those polled but gave just 7% of donations.

These disparities were not due to differences in income. People who said they were "very conservative" gave 4.5% of their income to charity, on average; "conservatives" gave 3.6%; "moderates" gave 3%; "liberals" gave 1.5%; and "very liberal" folks gave 1.2%.

Full article by Arthur C. Brooks. We all saw the pittance that Joe Biden and Al Gore gave to charity, and the Obamas only stepped up to the collection plate when he started running for office. We've been tithing our income for over 30 years (yes, even when we were Democrats), and it's embarrassing that we give more than world leaders at a fraction of the income--not percentage, but actual dollars.

And the hype about how "finally" things are going to get done. Wow--has Oprah and her buddies in the media looked at how the Bush administration threw money at social problems? It was my main complaint about his years in office--he not only outspent the Democrats but there were fried chittlins and little oversight on everything being handed out, particularly to non-profits and faith-based groups, which only weakened them. If Barney Frank had help bringing down the housing industry, it was from all the grants given to ineffective groups that were profligate spenders bleating about the right of the low-income worker to an overpriced mortgage they couldn't afford. And now those same groups have their hands out asking for money to run foreclosure counseling programs.