How Generous Are Liberal Politicians?

[Play The Man]

The media likes to portray liberal politicians as generous people; however, a quick look at the tax returns of some liberal politicians shows that in their personal lives, they often aren't generous at all.

For example, here are tables summarizing the tax returns of Joe Biden followed by a table summarizing the tax returns of Barack Obama:http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_b...x-returns.html

Biden:



Obama:


It is amazing how stingy Biden is in his giving. In 1999, despite having an adjusted gross income of $210K, he only gave $120 to charity! Kids with paper routes give that much to charity! As you can see from the table, 1999 is not an anomaly. His average giving from 2000-2008 is a fraction of 1% despite making a six figure salary.

Barack Obama isn't much better. Before he entered national politics and was under scrutiny, he donated 0.4% of his income to charity in 2002 despite making over $250K. This is the same guy that chastises those making over $250K as not paying their fair share and deserving of a tax hike!

Prior liberal presidential candidates aren't any better. For instance, Al Gore donated only $353 to charity in 1997 despite an income of $197K.http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/15/gore.taxes/

John Kerry might be the worst of all. In 1995, he made $126K and donated a grand total of $0 to charity. During a six year period in the '90's, Kerry donated an average of 7/10ths of 1% despite making six figures.http://www.jeffjacoby.com/4640/kerrys-charity-gap

What about the greedy conservative candidates? In 2005, Dick Cheney made $8.8M and gave over 75% to charity.http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/...15/02358.shtml

In 2000, George Bush donated a respectable 13% of his income to charity.http://www.philanthropyjournal.org/archive/56686

These results are not atypical for Americans in general. Arthur Brooks documents in his book Who Really Cares?,http://www.arthurbrooks.net/whoreallycares/excerpt.html that American liberals are incredibly stingy when it comes to personal giving.

[NateR]

Well, Liberals are only generous with other people's money.

Cheney gave 75% of his income to charity? That's awesome!

[Play The Man]

Originally Posted by NateR

Well, Liberals are only generous with other people's money.

Cheney gave 75% of his income to charity? That's awesome!

Yes, it is.

The Cheneys gave more than three-quarters of their income - $6,869,655 - to several charities, including George Washington University's Cardiothoracic Institute and a charity for low-income high school students in the Washington, D.C. area, Capital Partners for Education.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/...15/02358.shtml

WTF

Obama cleared 2.5 million and only gave up 200K?
pfft.

[Play The Man]

Originally Posted by atomdanger

WTF

Obama cleared 2.5 million and only gave up 200K?
pfft.

The Obama's have to save their money for more important things, like Michelle's $540 gym shoes http://talkingshopping.com/talking/2...540-kicks.html and her $6,000 (or is it $875?) handbag http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle...r_russia_.html In addition, they have to send both their daughters to private school at Sidwell Friends at $30,000 per child per year. They wouldn't want to be consistent and send their own children to the public schools that they tout for everyone else's children. It sure was nice of Obama to close the voucher program (to new students) that gave some Washington, D.C. public school students an opportunity to attend private school. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/...ing_dc_vo.htmlAt least they won't be donating money to Rev. Wright's church any longer.

[Play The Man]

Originally Posted by NateR

Well, Liberals are only generous with other people's money.

That reminds me of Lady Thatcher's quote that was in the thread about bumper stickers: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

cheney can afford to give 75% of his paychecks to charities these days considering he is forever rich from his corrupt halliburton dealings, and the bush family empire has always been rich ever since prescott. bush grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and has always been way more wealthy than obama or biden ever have been. obama and biden didn't grow up rich so of course bush and cheney have more money to throw at charities than to save

and where were you guys when palin was spending ridiculous amounts of her campaign money on dresses and necklaces and crap like that. i don't remember any of you complaining about that here. lol

Originally Posted by que

cheney can afford to give 75% of his paychecks to charities these days considering he is forever rich from his corrupt halliburton dealings, and the bush family empire has always been rich ever since prescott. bush grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and has always been way more wealthy than obama or biden ever have been. obama and biden didn't grow up rich so of course bush and cheney have more money to throw at charities than to save

and where were you guys when palin was spending ridiculous amounts of her campaign money on dresses and necklaces and crap like that. i don't remember any of you complaining about that here. lol

not to mention selling his much of his oil stock before the iraq war or somehow getting a piece of the texas rangers for half a mill or so and selling for over 10 million?? no that is just good business deals, nothing fishing .. but we will wait for one of the nuthugging GWB fans to come here and tell us our stories are made up and they are the product of biased liberal media .. LOL ..

[VCURamFan]

Originally Posted by rearnakedchoke

not to mention selling his much of his oil stock before the iraq war or somehow getting a piece of the texas rangers for half a mill or so and selling for over 10 million?? no that is just good business deals, nothing fishing .. but we will wait for one of the nuthugging GWB fans to come here and tell us our stories are made up and they are the product of biased liberal media .. LOL ..

The problem is that we're not talking about raw numbers. We're discussing percentages of income. Whether or not I'm wealthier than you, you can still give a larger % of your income than me. Heck, if you make 20K a year & give $1,000 to charity & I make 50k a year & give the same, you're donating a much larger percentage. And it's not a difference of a few points. It's a difference of 13% & 6.5%, meaning that not only did Bush give a larger rwa number, yes, but he also gave a larger percentage. Are you going to tell me that Obama is so much poorer than Bush that he can't afford to give more?

[NateR]

Originally Posted by que

1. cheney can afford to give 75% of his paychecks to charities these days considering he is forever rich from his corrupt halliburton dealings, and the bush family empire has always been rich ever since prescott. bush grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and has always been way more wealthy than obama or biden ever have been. obama and biden didn't grow up rich so of course bush and cheney have more money to throw at charities than to save

2. and where were you guys when palin was spending ridiculous amounts of her campaign money on dresses and necklaces and crap like that. i don't remember any of you complaining about that here. lol

1. Yeah, giving $7 million to charity when he made $8 million that year, is just proof that he's sooooo corrupt.

2. Because that whole story was a lie, it never happened.