Philanthropy by Proxy


Posted by realityunwound (Diary)

Thursday, April 15th at 5:58PM EST

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So I saw the Executive Branch tax returns today and a few interesting things popped out at me. Now I’m a humanities guy, so if I’ve misapplied or misinterpreted these numbers, please let me know…

Barack & Michelle Obama’s AGI:                      $5, 505, 409
Obama Household Charitable Contributions*:      $329,100
Charitable Contributions as % of AGI:                          6%
*Now he gave away his 1.4 Nobel prize, which is commendable, however since it was a one time “prize” (for something or other, I’m sure) it’s not really indicative of his normal charitable giving habits. I checked out his 2007 returns, and the numbers bear out that 2009 was actually a better year (5.8% in ’07), so we’ll go with the higher number.

When I got to the Deputy Assistant to the Vice Executive, I found these numbers
The Biden’s AGI:                                          $333,182
Biden Household Charitable Contributions:    $4,820 (that’s money AND in kind (!!))
Charitable Contributions as % of AGI:               1.4% (again, money AND in kind (!!))
Just out of curiosity, I dug up…
George & Laura Bush’s AGI in 2007:              $719,274
Bush’s Household Charitable Contributions: $165,660
Charitable Contributions as % of AGI:                 23% (up from 12% on their 2006 returns)
Dick & Lynn Cheney’s AGI in 2007:  $2,528,068
Cheney Household Contributions:       $166,547
Charitable Contributions as % of AGI:       6.6%
A few things that I notice about these numbers:
  1. Obama earned $5.5 million in 2007.
  2. The Executive Branch of the Obama Administration gave 5.7% of their AGI to charity (that’s including Biden’s “in kind” donations. Did he drop a bag of clothes at the Delaware Goodwill?)
  3. The Executive Branch of the Bush Administration gave 10.2% of the AGI to charity (no broken appliance donations indicated).
  4. Barack Obama out earned Bush + Cheney by $2,258,067
Irrefutable (/s) conclusions drawn from these numbers
  1. Joe Biden is a JOKE in every facet of his life!!
  2. The greedy rich white guys earned less than 1/2 of what the President of the People earned.
  3. Despite earning $2.5 M more than the Bush team, Team Hopenchange gave a total $1713 more to charity. Unless, of course, Biden claimed more than $1700 for the 2 bags of faded trousers, bicycle with the bent wheel, and broken TV set that he gave to the Salvation Army. Then it’s a wash.
My liberal friends don’t understand why I think the liberal’s give a flying fig about equity, the poor, or the disadvantaged. I think if these guys really cared about the disadvantaged, they’d put their money where their mouth is. The reality is that King Barry & his trusty, high-foreheaded, sidekick “F-Bomb Plugs” don’t want to put THEIR money into solving these problems, when they can put MY money toward solving the problems.
Conservatives give, because we believe that Washington D.C. isn’t the solution to our problems, but that Washington D.C. IS the problem. *

*You didn’t think I was going to get through Tax Day without hearkening back to The Gipper, Ronald “Starve The Beast” Reagan, did you?


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