So Much for those "Giving" Liberals…

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There are people who get really antsy when I talk about the generosity of individuals—but I don’t care; I’m going to talk about it anyway, because what we voluntarily give says more about us than most anything else when it comes to our personal priorities.  And so with that thought in mind, we now have access to the priorities of the two leading liberals in our country, President Obama and Vice-President Biden.

The President’s Tax Returns

I will congratulate the president; this return compares favorably with some of his returns from previous years, which demonstrated him to be, frankly, a pretty stingy individual.  That said, I’d hardly gush with the praise heaped on him in this article, which says he was “very generous, giving $329,100 to 40 different charities.” On an income of $5.5 million?  Seriously?  They’re impressed by that?  I suppose that compared with a lot of Americans, it’s not terribly bad, but if you read the article and do the math, it indicates that after taxes, the Prez and First Lady still had nearly $4 million left over—which means that after they gave, they still had a cool $3.6 million.  Yawn.  Not terribly impressive on the old giving scale; if I made that much jack and gave less than a million, I’d be embarrassed, frankly, and I don’t say that to toot my own horn; sheesh, shouldn’t something in that ballpark that just be par for the course, particularly for a professing Christian?  Not even a hard call.

But alas, that liberal paragon Joe Biden, on a salary of over $330K, forked over less than 5 large to charity.  Sorry, but that’s just downright stingy.  Not that that keeps people like Mr. Biden from supporting tax increases so that our money is forcibly confiscated by Washington in order to support whatever “beneficial social program” the liberals deem necessary.  This reminds me of the old adage that there’s nothing particularly virtuous about being willing to try to do good with other people’s money—not that that’s ever stopped a liberal politician, mind you…

4 Comments

  1. Graham on April 16, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    What sort of charities were they? Were they things that should have charitable status or were they more political or campaigning in nature?

    • Byron on April 16, 2010 at 3:40 pm

      Hard to say, Graham, hard to say. The article doesn’t.

  2. Derlin on April 17, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    I think that forced support of “beneficial social programs” will also make more people stingy with personal giving, simply because they now have less money to give to worthy causes.

    • Byron on April 17, 2010 at 8:01 pm

      BinGO!

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