So, let’s all hop into the DeLorean, hit 88 mph, speed back to 2011, grab a newspaper, and read the headlines…look at that, Romney vs. Obama for the office of President of the United States. Now, having worked at a company that felt the icy cold hand of greed that is Bain Capital, I am no fan…(though I understand the principle of cutting costs to try to save the company as a whole, I only saw the cutting of costs to get money in the pockets of Bain and friends) of Romney or his business.
That said, if you look at these headlines in this paper you are holding, you may notice a very harsh look at one Mitt Romney and his tax returns. The article I read called out a couple of items:
- Romney is worth over $200 million, kids are grown, he could afford to donate everything he made the previous year, but he didn’t.
- Romney gave over $4 million of the $13 million he made to charity. The two main charities being the LDS church (Mormons) and his own foundation.
The article goes on to say how instead of viewing Romney as charitable, we should see only that he is giving money to his church and his foundation and that, argues the writer of this specific article, is nothing but buying stained glass windows and putting money into an entity he controls, instead of feeding the hungry. They actually used the term, miserly, to describe him. Someone donates $4 million dollars and they are miserly? He claimed $13.7 million in income and gave away over $4 million…just over 29 percent. He gave away almost 30% of everything he made, and because he didn’t give it to a specific charity that this writer approved of, he is Ebenezer Scrooge?
Look, I am no supporter of the church and think that they should pay taxes like everyone else, but donating is donating. Romney may not be my favorite person, but he gave away 30% of his income. I know, tax relief, write-off, blah blah blah…but the federal taxes on $13 million would be about $3.8 million…which is less than he gave away. He also paid $1.9 million in taxes that year…so he paid/donated $6 million when he could have just paid his full tax burden and kept over $2 million more for himself.
Why do I risk being trapped in 2011 with a broken flux capacitor to re-live all of this?
Well, Hillary recently released her taxes and there is no article blasting her when, utilizing the author’s own code of important items we should note when donating:
- Hillary and Bill are worth over $110 million dollars, kids are grown, and could afford to give away everything they made in 2015, but didn’t.
- Hillary gave $1,042,000 in charitable donations out of the $10,745, 376 she earned. The two donations were $1,000,000 to her Clinton Family Foundation and $42K to a golf tournament…more on that later.
Somehow, she and Bill give away less than 10% of their earnings, of that they give 99% of to their own foundation (which coincidentally employs Chelsea), and this same journalist isn’t rallying the masses to call her out on her self-serving, miserly act of largesse. Where is everyone? Why am I only hearing crickets from the media?
If donating mainly to a church and one’s own foundation is bad, then donating solely to one’s own foundation and a golf tournament isn’t any better. That $42K to the Desert Classic….got them a $700K donation back to the Clinton Foundation. Where do I sign up? I give you $42K, you give me $700K…and no one thinks this is odd?
Again, I don’t want either of the two shambling mounds of ham salad of the major parties to win the election, I just want someone out there to call the game evenly. If Romney is a miser, then Clinton is worse and those that were so quick to lambaste Mitt, can’t now turn and ignore the exact same behavior from Hillary. Can we please stop the hypocrisy? If an action is a foul for one side, that same action is a foul on yours.
Above the Nonsense 