With all the talk of recession lately, social and economic charities might not be foremost on your mind. And just as you're pinching your pennies, so is corporate America, causing several high-stakes charities a lot of worry about where they'll get the donations they've long received from deep-pocket financial and legal companies nationwide.

According to a New York Times article on the topic, the rule of thumb in philanthropy is that 90% of the funds come from 10% of the donors. This means that the very rich will be receiving a lot more fund-raising phone calls in 2008, and those charities that relied on companies like Bear Stearns, which was devastated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis last year, will face a rough road ahead until they find new corporate support.

Compare this to just four years ago, when the same newspaper cited above reported that the 400 wealthiest Americans provided 7 percent of the total charitable donations, despite accounting for *just* 1 percent of the nation's overall income. And even that, for some, wasn't enough. It was argued, justifiably I might add, that those donors could have given much more without diminishing their socio-economic standing.

But at least the spirit was there, and the ability.

The real question here is whether this recession has actually cost us that ability. If the federal government can throw each of us $600 just for filing our taxes on time, isn't it fair to say that it could just as easily allocate those funds to causes that really need them?

Of course, the $600 checks are meant to stimulate the economy, which is kind of like giving to charity. After all, charity is simply something given to a person or cause that needs it, and our economy does need a boost. But what if the wanton, impulsive use of those checks doesn't help at all, but instead just leads to more trouble later on?

This strikes me as a good example of the federal government missing the mark in its effort to help solve a problem we all have to deal with: our prosperity overall, not just those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs, and therefore the luxury of doing our taxes.