Those who refute Obamunism’s 'spread the wealth around' mantra are significantly more charitable than those who support it.

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“When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”  So lectured aspiring redistributor Barack Obama to aspiring entrepreneur Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher in October 2008. 

Survivors of relentless Soviet efforts to spread the wealth around between 1917 and 1991 might beg to differ. 

Regardless, Obama applies that logic to everybody else’s money more than his own.  Based upon an analysis of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax returns that very year, University of Cincinnati College of Law Professor Paul Caron reported that Obama earned an average income of $551,081 between the years 2000 and 2006.  During that period, he spread a mere 2.19% of his growing six- and seven-figure wealth to charity. 

If you think that sounds shamefully hypocritical of Obama, you obviously haven’t heard about supposed “lunch bucket” Joe Biden.  During that same 2008 campaign, Biden rationalized higher tax rates for people in his own income bracket by preaching that, “Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is you take care of people who need it the most.” 

Well, Professor Caron analyzed Biden’s IRS returns for the years 1998 to 2007, when his income averaged $319,863.  During that ten-year span, Biden spread less than 1% of his own wealth to charity - 0.14%. 

Biden famously labeled higher taxes “patriotic” during a September 2008 campaign rally.  Charity, however, apparently is not. 

By way of comparison, Professor Caron noted that 89% of Americans, most of whom earn far less than Obama or Biden, contribute an average of 3.1% to charity annually.  According to the IRS data, those who, like Obama and Biden, earned over $200,000 contributed $20,434. 

That notorious disconnect rose to the forefront again this past Christmas Eve.  That day, American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks offered his latest comparison of charitable behavior in a Wall Street Journal commentary entitled “Tea Partiers and the Spirit of Giving.”  First, Brooks highlighted Americans’ generosity compared to supposedly more “caring” counterparts in Europe.  “Americans in general,” he noted, “are very charitable, by international standards.  Study after study shows that we privately give multiples of what our Social Democratic friends in Europe donate, per capita.” 

“But,” Brooks added, “not all Americans are equally generous.”  He once again described how, “The millions of Americans who believe in limited government give disproportionately to others.”  Specifically, those who refute Obamunism’s “spread the wealth around” mantra are significantly more charitable than those who support it: 

“The General Social Survey (GSS) found that those who were against higher levels of government redistribution privately gave four times as much money, on average, as people who were in favor of redistribution.  This is not all church-related giving; they also gave about 3.5 times as much to non-religious causes.  Anti-redistributionists gave more even after correcting for differences in income, age, religion and education.” 

It was all too much for resident MSNBC eunuch Lawrence O’Donnell, who flailed against Ann Coulter following her recent appearance on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”  Coulter had simply noted the same reality described by Brooks, saying, “As has been demonstrated time and time again, liberals are the least charitable with their money.  Conservatives, and especially Christians, are the most charitable.”  Instead of confronting the data head-on, O’Donnell tried anecdotal diversion: 

“Liberals are the least charitable with their money?  Really, Ann?  Consider the response of this program’s audience, which surely has some liberals in it, to my plea for donations to the K.I.N.D. Fund, Kids In Need of Desks.  Last week I announced this unique partnership between MSNBC and UNICEF to raise money for desks for school children in Africa who now sit on dirt floors or cement floors.  The desks we are supplying to these schools are made in Malawi.  So the contributions to buy a desk also help stimulate the Malawi economy, provide jobs for the workers who will make those desks and enable them to feed their families.  The response to my announcement I reported last night has been more than we could have ever reasonably expected.” 

That was the best he could muster.  O’Donnell even used the term “stimulate,” meaning he is no longer on the White House distribution list and aware that the term has been banned.  At any rate, our guess is that conservatives who watch MSNBC for comedic value were the ones responding charitably to O’Donnell’s plea.  But like O’Donnell’s modus operandi, that is purely speculation. 

Either way, the fact once again stands:  Liberals love to spread other people’s wealth around, whereas conservatives offer their own.