Interesting commentary ...
Vice President Joe Biden has urged that Americans earning more than $250,000 accept higher taxes as their patriotic duty. But he fails to take the societal obligations of the rich to heart. Last year the Bidens gave $995 to charity, 0.3 percent of their income of $320,000. Perhaps inspired by President Barack Obama's "spread-the-wealth" message, this paltry amount was, for the Bidens, unusually generous. In the previous 10 years Biden and his wife donated an average of $369 a year. In 1999 they gave $120 to charity.
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Gore and Biden fall well short, not just of their professed ideals, but of the American average. Typically, about two-thirds of U.S. households report charitable donations, averaging about 3 percent of income.
How much praise is due these politicians for voting and otherwise advocating for the poor while failing to personally act on this ideal? Perhaps ordinary people deserve some credit for imposing greater tax burdens on themselves. But those who seek to gain political power at the slight cost of higher personal taxes — if they actually pay them — deserve no more credit than a slave-owning abolitionist.
I am unaware of any data on this, but I concede that liberals are more likely to drive a Prius and recycle their garbage. It is curious that they seem to prefer cost-free gestures of conscience over doing measureable good for real individuals. Perhaps this is the modern version of the doctrine of faith over good works.
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