Seems Joe Biden isn’t a very giving guy, at least, not according to his tax returns. As the article points out, the average American gives about 2% while Biden gave much less than that. But is this really an issue?
For every American that gives 4% there’s one that gives 0%. For every American that gives 20%, there are nine that give 0%. For every American that is capable of giving a chunk of their money as disposable income to charitable causes there’s any number that have to figure out how they’re going to pay their next electric bill or put food on the table.
Now it’s not that bad for Biden. He and his wife are clearing around $250,000 a year over the last ten years. That’s far from poor. But without knowing his expenses it’s hard to judge how much money he has left to give back. Or whether he writes it all off as taxes.
I think Biden’s spokesman David Wade puts it well when he says:
“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.”
Judge charity by the body of work, not by the dollars. Heck, I’d argue that rolling up your sleeves and committing time and effort to a cause can have a greater impact than just writing a check and being done with it. Especially when a good number of folks know full well that that’s a tax writeoff and ease their mind by telling themselves that. But you can’t write off effort, who’s only reward is the knowledge of your efforts and the changes it creates.
