Punch line: Charitable gifts are a cheerful protest vote against the growing state.
Translation: since charitable donations are tax deductible, folks can divert money from the Fed coffers to causes of their choosing.
It’s a win-win-win. Charities get money to operate, the Feds get less money to waste, and the contributors can feel that they did good in two ways – by supporting worthwhile causes and constraining our free-spending Congress.
Explains why Buffett pledges his dough to Gates’ Foundation and why, generally, conservatives give way more to charity than liberals.
From the WSJ …
Your intuition might tell you that people who favor government redistribution of wealth care most about the less fortunate and would give more to charity.
But the data tell a different story.
A large, nonpartisan survey asked people about both redistributive beliefs and charitable giving. It found that those who were against higher levels of government redistribution of wealth privately gave four times as much money, on average, as people who were in favor of redistribution. This is not all church-related giving; they also gave about 3.5 times as much to nonreligious causes. Anti-redistributionists gave more even after correcting for differences in income, age, religion and education.
Obviously, not all charity has ideological connotations — nor should it.
But for many, especially at this time of year, giving is a cheerful, productive protest vote against the growing state.
WSJ, Tea Partiers and the Spirit of Giving, Dec. 24, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704774604576036010174911064.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion
The Homa Files 
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