Follow-Up to Presidential Candidates Charitable Giving

Last week I wrote here with some energy about Senator Joe Biden's pitiful record on charitable giving. It evidently hit a nerve, as I received more comments on that post than any in several months.

I mentioned at that time that Governor Sarah Palin's giving records hadn't yet been released, but that I would be watching closely. Just a couple hours ago, her tax returns for the recent two years were made available to the public.

I'm disappointed. The Palin's gave 3.3% of their income in 2006 and 1.5% in 2007 (an average of 2.4% for the two years. Although this percentage is 19x more than Biden and 2.5x more than Obama (before he began his presidential run)...it is still disappointing to me. I realize that the average American family gives about 2% of their income to charitable organizations, but I expect more out of our leaders.

If I were giving the four candidates a grade based soley on their charitable giving (considering all tax returns released), it would look like this...

These percentages include ALL the giving from ALL the tax returns released by ALL the candidates. No available years were omitted.