• In 2005, Americans contributed $48 billion to health and social services via individual donations, as well as through foundations and corporations.

• Philanthropic giving is insensitive to tax rates, constantly hovering around two percent of income for the last half century.

• However, income is extremely sensitive to tax rates, and the burden of taxation incurred largely by the welfare state has crippled America’s growth.

• If the government had not raised taxes in the 1960s to fund the welfare state, economic growth would have been so great that the increased charitable giving to health and human services would now fund about half of the public assistance currently provided by the federal, state, and local governments —eliminating the “need” for much government intervention.

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