Larry Elder points out in a recent article he writes about the hypocrisy of charitable giving on the lefty and righty candidates and existing President.
"Liberal families earn about 6 percent more than conservative families, yet conservative households donate about 30 percent more to charity than do liberal households. And conservatives give more than just to their own churches and other houses of worship. Conservatives, especially religious conservatives, give far more money and donate more of their time to nonreligious charitable causes than do liberals — especially secular liberals.
In 2007, President George W. Bush and his wife had an adjusted gross income of $923,807. They paid $221,635 in taxes, and donated to charity $165,660 — 18 percent of their income.
Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, in 2007, had a taxable income of $3.04 million. And they paid $602,651 in taxes, and donated to charity $166,547 — 5.5 percent of their income.
Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned between $200,000 and $300,000 a year between 2000 and 2004, and they donated less than 1 percent to charity. When their income soared to $4.2 million in 2007, their charitable contributions went up to 5 percent.
Joe and Jill Biden, by contrast, made $319,853 and gave $995 to charity in 2007, or 0.3 percent of their income. And that was during the year Biden was running for president. Over the past 10 years, the Bidens earned $2,450,042 and gave $3,690 to charity — or 0.1 percent of their income."
Of course, I'm for whatever you want to give. I don't really have many programs I can honestly support that are "charitable". I don't particular care that either of these groups of people gave as much or as little as they did, but it really points out how absurd the common belief of bleeding heart liberals and tight wad conservatives is. Matter of fact, it just goes to show how absurd both side's arguments are as is often the case. Seriously you Republicans and Democrats need to sit down and review your facts before lobbing talking points at each other.
As for charity, I find it amazingly odd that the Dems often want the Government, by force, to take your money and provide some form of charity. Meanwhile Republicans give their money away like crazy and generally do something about the needy themselves. Very strange reversal of perceived ideals.
Anyway, this is a good point to keep in mind for arguments and debate, for now, I'm again off to do something more useful.