The part about money not being able to influence politics does not ring true to me. Sure, perhaps isolated cases like Mitt Romney and Meg Whitman may not have succeeded in winning some election, but then you have Koch brothers using newspapers and television networks to push their brand of politics.
"Another study, by a coalition of nonprofits called the Independent Sector, revealed that people with incomes below twenty-five grand give away, on average, 4.2 percent of their income, while those earning more than 150 grand a year give away only 2.7 percent."
This study is also unconvincing. You could say by percent the people making less than $25k are more generous, but the use of percents as a metric here is misleading. 2.7% of $150k+ is a minimum of $4050 while 4.2% of <$25k is at most $1050. Is it fair to say the wealthy are less generous when they are donating more money by one metric but not another?
> The part about money not being able to influence politics does not ring true to me.
Yeah, it's true that you can't outright buy an election wholesale. But rich people are rich for a reason: they don't just throw their money away on things that have zero results. They spend so much on elections because it has real results. Maybe it sways a race by 4%. But if the race is decided by 2%, then that's enough to win instead of lose. Plus, some of that money goes to campaigning, some goes to decide which candidates are able to afford to run in the first place, some goes to lobbyists, some of it goes directly to congressmen in return for favors, etc.
You may be interested in this: "In almost every instance, senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators’ roll call votes. Disparities in representation are especially pronounced for Republican senators, who were more than twice as responsive as Democratic senators to the ideological views of affluent constituents."
“Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
~ Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens; Perspectives on Politics, 2014
"Is it fair to say the wealthy are less generous when they are donating more money by one metric but not another?"
In my opinion yes, simply because I feel the "raw $$$ given away" metric is inherently useless when attempting to measure generosity; Exactly because it doesn't factor income into the equation. Someone making $1 million annually could give 100% (or more) of a lower income individual's income away without any serious effect on his quality of life.
Also that metric is likely considering low income religious people who are giving money do their church leaders, not charity in the sense of "giving to others for nothing direct in return"
A d of course high income folks pay 10-20% more of their income in taxes than low income folks.
And quite possibly spend more supporting extended family members and friends , compared to lower income members of the same family or social circle.
> of course high income folks pay 10-20% more of their income in taxes than low income folks.
This is blatantly false. The effective tax rates for the super rich are much lower than the average person, due to the majority of their income coming from capital gains. For example, Mitt Romney paid 14% on the 13.7M he made[1] in 2011.
No need to use such vitriolic language when I think it is clear what the parent comment was trying to say. People making 6 figures are paying anywhere from 3 to 25% more of their income than a person earning median income in the US. For reference, see the base tax rates for 2013 [1]
The article you referenced doesn't really support your argument. Mitt Romney only paid 14% (he could have paid less) because of a massive charitable donation.
Are you arguing that we should remove the tax break given to charitable donations?
"Another study, by a coalition of nonprofits called the Independent Sector, revealed that people with incomes below twenty-five grand give away, on average, 4.2 percent of their income, while those earning more than 150 grand a year give away only 2.7 percent."
This study is also unconvincing. You could say by percent the people making less than $25k are more generous, but the use of percents as a metric here is misleading. 2.7% of $150k+ is a minimum of $4050 while 4.2% of <$25k is at most $1050. Is it fair to say the wealthy are less generous when they are donating more money by one metric but not another?