Wolking’s World

At the Saddleback forum with Rick Warren, Obama said this in response to the question, “What is the greatest moral failure of America?”:

I think America’s greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we … still don’t abide by that … basic precept in Matthew that: ‘whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.’ And that notion of — that basic principle applies to poverty. It applies to racism and sexism. It applies to, you know, not … thinking about providing ladders of opportunity for people to get into the middle class.

I mean, there’s a pervasive sense, I think, that this country, as wealthy and powerful as we are, still don’t spend enough time thinking about the least of these.

Instapundit noted that Obama could start by helping his own brother, living in squalor in a hut in Africa. Ed Morrissey pointed out that the US blows other countries out of the water when it comes to charitable giving.

[T]he US sent a massive Navy presence to the islands devastated by the tsunamis to ensure the proper distribution of relief, at no small cost to our nation and military during a period when we were fighting two wars.  Even apart from that, Americans raised over $2 billion privately  for tsunami relief, more than doubling the $900 million spent by the US government.

In fact, no country even came close to our efforts in tsunami relief.  Germany and Australia gave $1.3 billion, the UK almost $800 million, Canada $780 million, Japan $500 million, and France gave $300 million.

The American noted the difference between Americans and the rest of the world as givers:

No developed country approaches American giving. For example, in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans. These differences are not attributable to demographic characteristics such as education, income, age, sex, or marital status. On the contrary, if we look at two people who are identical in all these ways except that one is European and the other American, the probability is still far lower that the European will volunteer than the American.

In Spain, the government studied this question and found that the US more than doubled any Western nation in per-capita donations (in Euros):

COUNTRY…………….PER CAP. GIVING

Spain……………………..122
Belgium……………………120
U.K……………………….117
Netherlands………………..110
Ireland……………………100
France……………………..74
Finland…………………….70
Austria…………………….50
Germany…………………….39
Hungary…………………….32
Slovakia……………………25
Czech Republic………………25
Romania……………………..5

U.S……………………….278

So, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Obama believes America is a stingy country, full of uncaring, selfish Americans.

It would thus stand to reason that Obama, so full of liberal compassion, convicted by the biblical passage he himself cites, and a heart heavy with the burden of compensating for his greedy countrymen, would be relatively generous with his personal income.

Oops. Such is not the case.

The New York Times reported on the Obamas’ tax returns earlier this year. With the clever title, “Obamas’ Tax Returns Show Donation Spike,” it reports that the Obamas gave less to charity than the average American household between the years of 2000 and 2004.

It wasn’t until Obama was elected to the Senate and started running for President that he actually started to donate.

Obama's charitable giving according to tax returns

The Chicago Tribune reported that, despite the fact that their income in 2002 put them in the top 2% of American households, the Obamas gave just under a fifth of the percentage of income given by the average American family. And this was not just one off year; it was a trend.

Faulting America for being uncaring and selfish while you yourself give less than the average? That’s audacity!

But wait–it gets worst.

As Rush notes:

When the couple did finally cough up $60,307 to charity in 2006, $22,500 went to Reverend Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, $13,107 went to the Congressional Black Caucus, and $5,000 went to the Muntu Dance Theater, “a south-side Chicago troupe that performs contemporary and ancient African dances.”

So a full third of his 2006 charitable giving went toward financing anti-American, racist rants full of expletives. Lovely.

Obama may want to alleviate world poverty and help “the least of these,” but he wants to do it with other peoples’ money.

Not only does that make him one of the worst kinds of human being, but it also means he is the most dangerous type of politician.

And in case you were wondering, Biden’s giving is less than stellar, too.