No, this is not a post about the antics of Mr. Mollo, Shelly and Sunny, my feathered babies.
Instead, it is a link to reports about giving (or, should I say "lack thereof"?) on the part of Senator Biden.
We never know all the details about who gives what and why. Perhaps there is some good reason why Biden and his wife never gave more than one half of one percent of their not insubstantial income to charity. Nevertheless, my mind contemplated the same line of reasoning that Professor Mankiw did:
If Biden's below-average charitable giving is typical of those with his political views, why am I surprised by it? Because this man has run for President more than once. He must have known there was a good chance that his tax returns would at some point be made public and undergo close scrutiny. He had a far greater-than-average personal motivation for charitable giving and, nonetheless, chose not to chip in.
Shouldn't the Bidens have given somewhat more - if for no other reason than crass "it looks good for my resume" marketing?
I'm unsure what the relevance of charitable giving is for whether someone is qualified to be President or Vice President.
In contrast, the questions about the Palin tax returns certainly raise issues of willful noncompliance (or, at a minimum, a quite extraordinarily aggressive tax position).
Posted by: Greg | Monday, September 15, 2008 at 03:06 AM
Greg; you are quite opaque today. "Palin tax returns?" Has she submitted them? If she has, I am not aware.
I did NOT say that Biden wasn't qualified to be vice president! I never said that any of the four candidates are not!
I only said that Biden has very low charitable giving. You might also note that I mentioned sometimes there are circumstances that the rest of us are not privy to that account for this.
My only real "negative" was that he might have given more in "preparation" for a run. People do look at what you give, and not irrationally, judge you to be a generous and giving person if you give handsomely - and not if you do not.
To join certain clubs, for instance, you sometimes are required to have a level of giving above a certain amount. Just a "values" thing.
Posted by: Peg | Monday, September 15, 2008 at 08:07 AM
I would expect that their charitable giving will decrease even more since they will be hit with the Obama “over 250K a year” tax hike. But since they are “rich” (by Obama’s over $250K a year definition) that means that they got huge tax saving from the Bush tax cuts. That means that should have plenty of cash to give to charity. Maybe they did like other people and just saved or spent the money.
Or it could just be that Biden gives away money w/o filing it on his taxes.
Posted by: LLR | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 06:03 PM