Great moments in liberal philanthropy
On Friday, the typical political bad news document dump day, the Obama campaign released the last 10 years of Sen. Joe Biden's tax returns. The documents reveal once again that Democrats see philanthropic giving as paying your taxes -- and little more.
Biden's adjusted gross income never dropped below $200k and he never gave more than $1k in any of the past ten years.
This appears to be a systemic issue with Democrats. Sen. Barack Obama didn't start really giving to charity until he became a millionaire. Which also roughly correlates with when he began running for president.
Sen. John Kerry had a similar issue with charitable giving.
In all, taking into account losses from investments, Kerry reported a total 2003 income of $395,338. His total federal tax bill was $90,575. He had $27,277 of that withheld from his paychecks and paid the rest, $63,298, with his tax return.
Kerry reported giving $43,735, or about 11 percent of his total income, to charity. That significant level of giving stands in contrast to his record in the 1990s, in which the issue of the senator's charitable contributions was a source of controversy. In 1995, Kerry reportedly had a taxable income of $126,179, and made charitable contributions of $0. In 1994, he gave $2,039 to charity. In 1993, the figure was $175. In 1992, it was $820, and in 1991, it was $0.
And it's not just the most elite of the liberal elite that suffer from this problem.
Results of a program using Aspen’s Canary Initiative to sell carbon offset credits to Democratic National Convention attendees are a little underwhelming.
The program, set up by the DNC Host Committee through the Denver Convention and Visitors Bureau and rolled out about a week before the convention started, raised a total of $18.34 worth of Canary Tags, offsetting 0.9 tons of carbon emissions.
They might have done better had they set out spare change jars.
In contrast, Sen. John McCain donated 26 percent of his income to charity in 2007 and 18 percent of his income to charity in 2006.
Gov. Sarah Palin has yet to release her tax returns.
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Liberals don't believe in charity because they believe in government. Those of us in the real world know that charitable organizations, on balance, are so much more effective than governments in solving the myriad of challenges that humans face.
The same thing showed up when they checked Al Gore's charitable deductions when he was vice president. He gave something like $200 one year.
But it's a matter of principle with those Democrat politicians. They don't give directly to charities because they honestly believe that the government should be the one that doles out the handouts to charities (that are selected by the politicians).
They are earnest when they assume that you and I do not have the capacity to pick the correct charities. Only the political leaders can do that. Otherwise some poltically correct charties might not get "their fair share" from the rabble. And they will take your money in taxes to parcel it to beneficiaries that you might not agree with.
[...] sort of disconnect has been noted before, yet it hasn’t seemed to shame liberals into more charitable giving — the purported [...]