The devout Catholic Joe Biden preaches that we should be our brother's keeper.
Biden can talk the talk, but does he walk the walk?
Based on his tax returns, Biden's charitable giving in the past 10 years has been an absolute embarrassment.
Byron York writes:
Last Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice president, released his tax returns for the years 1998 to 2007. The returns revealed that in one year, 1999, Biden and his wife Jill gave $120 to charity out of an adjusted gross income of $210,979. In 2005, out of an adjusted gross income of $321,379, the Bidens gave $380. In nine out of the ten years for which tax returns were released, the Bidens gave less than $400 to charity; in the tenth year, 2007, when Biden was running for president, they gave $995 out of an adjusted gross income of $319,853.
Here is a chart of the Bidens’ giving for the years covered by the tax returns:Adjusted Gross Income - Charity
1998 - $215,432 - $195
1999 - $210,797 - $120
2000 - $219,953 - $360
2001 - $220,712 - $360
2002 - $227,811 - $260
2003 - $231,375 - $260
2004 - $234,271 - $380
2005 - $321,379 - $380
2006 - $248,459 - $380
2007 - $319,853 - $995
Total - $2,450,042 - $3,690
“The average American household gives about two percent of adjusted gross income,” says Arthur Brooks, the Syracuse University scholar, soon to take over as head of the American Enterprise Institute, who has done extensive research on American giving. “On average, [Biden] is not giving more than one tenth as much as the average American household, and that is evidence that he doesn’t share charitable values with the average American.”
A spokesman for Biden, David Wade, says the figures on Biden’s tax return do not reflect the true extent of his giving. “The charitable contributions claimed by the Bidens on their tax returns are not the sum of their annual contributions to charity,” Wade said in a statement to NRO. “Like most regular churchgoers, they contribute to their church, and they also contribute to their favorite causes with their time as well as their checkbooks, whether it’s [Jill] Biden’s volunteer work with military families or the Biden breast-health initiative, or the way in which the family pitched in driving supplies to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, or the ways Sen. Biden has supported charities that help women, police, and veterans.”
Wade also suggests that Biden, who is famous for being the least wealthy member of the U.S. Senate, simply doesn’t have piles of money to give. “Like a lot of families that put three kids through college and have an aging parent move in with them, the Bidens aren’t divorced from the realities of everyday life,” Wade says. Still, Wade continues, “finding ways to give back is important to them.”
Biden gives dramatically less to charity than the average American household. "On average, [Biden] is not giving more than one tenth as much as the average American household."
That's pretty bad.
My first reaction when I saw his charitable giving history was: How is that possible? He's Catholic and makes a sizable income.
I'm a regular churchgoer.
Biden talks like he's a regular churchgoer.
Maybe it's different in Delaware, (I doubt it), but there's this thing in the Catholic Church called "stewardship."
We commit, in writing, to how much money we intend to donate to our church over the course of each year. Doesn't Biden's church use the envelope system or an electronic funds transfer system for giving? In any event, the amount we give is recorded by our parish, and it's more than Biden's charitable giving grand total for the entire year.
This stewardship is separate from anonymously tossing a few bills or coins into the collection basket at Mass.
I don't see how Biden, with his income, could swing giving so little to his church. It just doesn't work that way.
The excuses that Biden's spokesman gives for his Scrooge-like charitable giving are lame. Couldn't he scrape together a few more measly bucks to give to charity?
His sons are 39- and 38-years old. His daughter is 27-years-old.
All of his children are employed. Son Beau is the attorney general of Delaware. Son Hunter is a Washington lawyer and lobbyist. Daughter Ashley is a social worker in Delaware.
It seems strange for Biden to be using the "putting 3 kids through college" excuse for his miserly giving to charity. When two of your kids are pushing 40 that seems to be more than a bit of stretch.
His well paid, close to middle-aged children certainly can be paying off their own student loans.
If the figures on Biden's tax reform don't reflect the true extent of his giving, then he doesn't manage his finances very well.
Is he sloppy when it comes to record keeping? That's not very reassuring, potentially being a heartbeat away from the presidency.
The fact is Biden gives an embarrassingly low amount of his income to charity, shockingly low.
4 comments:
I'm going to try and make this more coherent.
There's alot of dancing trying to justify Biden's stinginess.
I think anyone who states that it's "patriotic" for Americans who make more to pay for in taxes not not giving more than 1% of their income is a hypocrite.
Biden's charitable giving record is an absolute embarrassment.
That's absolutely deplorable. I agree with "History and Future"; for someone who claims to care so much about the little guy (that he's encouraging to wage class warfare on the rich for having more money), he doesn't evidence it by giving to an organization that provides free food, counseling, shelter and aid to those who need it. Perhaps he likes to make "selfishness a virtue". Perhaps he doesn't claim his charitable contributions on his taxes because he'd rather "store his treasure in Heaven" and get his reward there. Maybe there's more giving than his tax returns indicate. Then again, perhaps Biden cares less about funding the efforts of helping those in need than making sure America's "wealthy" do it for him.
Post a Comment