Kurt Ullman wrote in
m:

In article , Dan Espen
wrote:

" writes:

That's 34% of his income that he's giving up and using to help
others.

You're counting the money he gives to the Mormon
Church as "helping others"?

I would. Having worked a few major disasters over the years,
Mormon-run disaster relief services have been an important part of
the response. Right up there with the Salvation Army and the Red
Cross. Unlike the Red Cross, they do all their fundraising
in-house so to speak (so they don't annoy you with breathless
missives about the IMMEDIATE NEED FOR MONEY) and unlike FEMA they
actually get there in a timely manner.
As motherjones.com (hardly a bastion of conservative
thinking)
noted:
"Before the storm (Katrina) made landfall, the LDS church in New
Orleans safely evacuated all but about seven families out of about
2,500 local members, largely because the church had created an
automated telephone emergency warning system that alerted all its
members, instructing them to get out of town and telling them
where to go.


Mormans helping their own - no problem there, but this doesn't
support your first sentence above. ( "helping others"? I would.) of
saying Mormans are . Why do you want to cite a source (hardly a
bastion of conservative thinking) ? The `stated information was just
a report of what happened, no spin, just the facts. Does this imply
that conservative thinking tends to overstate, exagerate, or
otherwise spin information?



Two days before the storm made landfall, while FEMA was
floundering,

The problem here was not FEMA, it was the FEMA director, whose only
emergency up to then was that a horse crapped in its tail just vefore
it was scheduled to be shown in a competition. Yep - another Shrub
crony.

FEMA, when manaed properly, has shown itself to be an effective
agency bringing to bear resources that far outweigh anything else
today.



the church dispatched 10 trucks full of tents,
sleeping bags, tarps to cover wrecked roofs, bottled water, and
5-gallon drums of gas from its warehouses to New Orleans and other
hard-hit areas. The supplies were distributed in an orderly
fashion to people who desperately needed them."

Distributed, I might add, without regard to the beliefs of the
recipients.


Who would ask questions of belief in this circumstance? What a
ridiculous statement.

Communities all over the country sent relief workers, food,
clothing, and other basic human necessities. I don't know thwe
count, but there were reports of church-run thrift stores clearing
out their clothing inventory to send to Katrina victims. WHat the
Morman church did was commendable, but in the vast devistation of the
Katrina disaster, not a unique response like you make it out to be.



The discussion here is final tax rates, ans what the 1040 shows is
the real rate, not a rate that is doctored by how you want to spin
ut.