The tax returns of Barack and Michelle Obama are available on the White House website.
Joe and Jill Biden's returns are also available.
The Obamas are rich.
The Bidens are paupers compared to the Obamas, but their income is still above that magic $250,000 mark. So they're rich, too.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Reporting from Chicago -- The first family released its 2008 federal tax return today, showing household income dropping to $2.7 million, from $4.2 million the previous year.
But while many Americans had a bad financial year, President Obama recorded a net profit from book sales of $2.5 million, according to a copy of the tax return released this afternoon by the White House.
He and First Lady Michelle Obama paid $855,323 in federal taxes, while making $172,050 in charitable contributions to 37 different charities. The largest reported gifts were $25,000 to both the United Negro College Fund and the relief organization CARE.
...Vice President Joe Biden and wife Jill reported adjusted gross income of $269,256 from salaries from the U.S. Senate, Widener University and Delaware Technical & Community College and royalties from the audio rights to the vice president's book. They paid $46,952 in federal income taxes.
I find the charitable contributions of the Obamas and the Bidens to be interesting.
Both couples dramatically altered their charitable giving in 2008. Previously, they donated much, much less to charities.
The Obamas gave $172,050 to 37 different charities. They gave $25,000 to the United Negro College Fund and $25,000 to CARE.
...The Obamas have only recently dug deeply into their own pockets to support charitable causes. In 2002, the year before Obama launched his U.S. Senate campaign, the couple reported income of $259,394 and $1,050 in deductions for gifts to charity, below the national average of $1,872.
So the Obamas gave well below the national average to charities even when their income placed them among rich Americans, by Obama's own definition. Not good.
The Bidens' charitable giving continues to be a terrible embarrassment even though they've greatly increased the amount they give to charity.
In 2008, the Bidens gave a whopping $1,885 to charity. Wow. Big stuff for them. In 2007, the Bidens donated only $995. To make matters worse, their 2007 donations showed a dramatic increase over past years.
Byron York provides a chart of the Bidens' charitable giving:
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
In ten years, they gave only $3,690 to charity!
That's a disgrace.
The White House website spins the Bidens' 2008 charitable donations.
The charitable donations claimed by the Bidens on their tax returns are not the sum of their annual contributions to charity. They donate to their church, and they contribute to their favorite causes with their time, as well as their checkbooks.
What is that?
I understand the difficulty in quantifying the value of time spent volunteering, but I don't understand why they don't know how much they donate to their church or their other "favorite causes." They can figure it out by looking at their "checkbooks."
The Bidens' pathetic excuses are even more glaring because the Obamas make no qualifications about their giving for 2008.
The Bidens must claim that their charitable giving is actually greater than the numbers make it appear to deflect from the fact that they don't give nearly as much as they could to charities.
The reality is the Bidens do not give generously to charities, and the Obamas didn't give much in the past.
Instead of private giving, I guess they think it's the government's responsibility to fund charities and provide for the needy.
9 comments:
While I understand your point, I would like to see this contrasted with G.W. Bush and B. Clinton.
Here's some info on Bush and Cheney.Here's some info on the Clintons.
That's pathetic. My husband and I have never made more than $50,000 a year, but every year we donate at least 10% to charity, mainly through our church. In our best year so far we donated more than Biden has in the past 10 years combined! When Obama talks about spreading the wealth around or taking care of the less fortunate I'll just have to add it to my list of hypocritical things he says that make me cringe.
Joe Biden former professor of law at Widener, with the most popular class ever because if his teaching style and even the conservatives loved it. Amazing Constitutional Law Class, he is missed for that.
Hey Professor maybe we can get him back there in four years...
Mary, thanks for the links. George and Bill have both kicked in quite a bit for the good works of Charity.
Their pattern of giving is despicable. I pastor in a poor area of Tulsa and the vast majority of people here give a far greater percentage of their income to the church and other charities.
If these two are interested in sharing the wealth...why not start at home?
See the book WHO REALLY CARES, written by a former liberal, now independent - these results are consistent with what the studies in the book show - liberals' charitable giving consistently lags conservatives' - http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compasionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008216 - No mention was made above of Dick Cheney's multi-million dollar charitable contributions, which seems an oversight to me - http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/15/02358.shtml
WOW, George W donated 18% of their income to charity in 2007?? Selfless and good of them. But why was this not revealed while he was in office? Let me guess... media hate.
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