While activists in Kerry blue states who are talking about seceding from the U.S. slam Bush red states for not giving as much in taxes as do their blue opponents, new research indicates most red states are considerably more generous in giving to charity than blue states.
The Generosity Index is compiled each year by the Catalogue for Philanthopy. It is computed by taking each state’s average income ranking and average charitable contribution ranking, and then subtracting the second rank from the first to get a single number for each state.
“Generosity in not just how much you give, but how much you give in relation to how much you have,” the site states.
The study measured the value of itemized charitable donations reported on 2002 federal tax returns, the latest year available.
This year’s findings reveal that 80 percent of the red states rank higher in generosity than any of the blue states and that all the blue states are in the lower half of the list.
Also, some of the red states with the lowest generosity ratings are those that voted for Bush most narrowly.
 (Images: MichelleMalkin.com) |
Earlier this week, media reported that activists in blue states were considering either seceding from the Union or joining up with our northern neighbor to form the United States of Canada.
One of the complaints was that the 19 blue states won by Kerry are “donor states” to the red states, meaning they give more in taxes to the federal government than is returned in the form of grants and services.
“Ninety percent of the red states are welfare-client states of the federal government,” Lawrence O’Donnell, a political analyst at MSNBC said on “The McLaughlin Group” last weekend.
O’Donnell, who has argued for secession, told the Washington Times the red states that went to Bush “collect more from the federal government than they send in. New York and California, Connecticut ? the states that are blue are all the states that are paying for the bulk of everything this government does, from … Social Security to everything else, and the people in those states don’t like what this government is doing.”
A map circulating on the Internet shows the blue states joining with Canada as a separate nation and the 31 red states dubbed “Jesusland.”
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