>>>>>Give the money directly to those who need it, I say.
>>>>>
>>>>>By what right?
>>>>>
>>>>>To be provided by whom?
>>>>
>>>>Please see the link I posted to Tracy. Obama wants to extend the tax cuts for most individuals. The only ones he wants to end on schedule at the end of the year are on those earning more than $250,000 a year. One of the points the article makes is that, according to the CBO, reducing taxes on those people does not provide very good bang for the buck, as I stated before.
>>>
>>>Whatever system you go with the one we now have where a lot of people are having a very hard time but the rich are getting richer could be described as broken.
>>>
>>>http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/09/23/forbes-rich-list-2010-are-the-rich-really-getting-richer/
>>
>>
>>I can see how you would be very upset with the rich in your country with them trying to use funds for the low income to heat their palaces:
>>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-tried-to-use-state-poverty-fund-to-heat-buckingham-palace-2088179.html
>
>I had to laugh when I heard about that.
>
>Its these old biddies living in draughty old buildings. She and Phil should be in some nice sheltered accommodation somewhere.
>
>There was an interesting article over here recently about how many of the US wealthy historically give away their wealth doing good works and contrasting it with our lovely wealthy who keep it all to themselves.

It is a different culture in some ways. Most wealthy people here do give away a percentage of their income to charities (the poor give a higher percentage) and to others who do good works while in the UK that is not the practice (and has not been historically like it has been here) so there is a greater need (or assumption maybe?) that the government will (hence the need for higher taxes) donate on their behalf.

A few good examples:

Gene Epstein will donate $1,000 to charity for every new hire Philadelphia businesses employ:
http://www.tonic.com/article/man-agrees-to-give-1000-to-businesses-if-they-hire-unemployed/

The $600 billion challenge:
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/16/gates-buffett-600-billion-dollar-philanthropy-challenge/
World Giving Index:
http://www.cafonline.org/default.aspx?page=19479&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewsFromCAF+%28News+from+Charities+Aid+Foundation%29

The results show the amount individuals give to charity varies from 0.14% of GDP in France to 1.7% in the US, while the UK records the second highest percentage at 0.73% (not bad especially considering the other studies and articles), not including legacies and trusts or any tax-recovery:
http://www.philanthropyuk.org/Newsletter/Summer2010Issue41/Couldthewealthygivemore

last year, the US set a record for largesse, giving away the equivalent of almost the entire gross domestic product of Greece in private charitable donations :
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-big-question-why-do-wealthy-americans-donate-so-much-to-charity-and-rich-britons-so-little-454789.html

One person's view of how this is really benevolent dictatorship:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-kleiman/billions-for-charity-but-_b_699289.html

The culture of giving (while still more the norm) is slowly being replaced here though by the culture of taking and the thinking that it is not the role of philanthropy but the government who should be collecting and handing out and deciding where it should go to do the most good.

What was Thomas Jefferson's saying? “Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have”