Walking the Walk – Gov. Pat Quinn Leads by Example

by Cal Skinner

Governor Pat Quinn has released his income tax forms to at least the Chicago Sun-Times.

Springfield Bureau Chief Dave McKinney reports that Quinn earned $120,226 last year.

More interesting to me was that he contributed to $12,379 to charitable organizations.

Over 10%.

10.26%, to be more exact.

You will remember the Biblical suggestion that believers tithe 10% of their income to church. In fact, tithe meant a tenth in Old English.

Why is this worth a story?

Check out what now-President Barack Obama gave to charity before and after he gained the national spotlight.

Compare what Obama, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and retired President George W. Bush contributed to the percentage donated by Quinn.

All are less than what Methodist Church founder John Wesley recommended:

Gain all you can.

Save all you can.

Give all you can.

Wesley died with very little, having given away what he got as it came to him.

Any other politicians who want to share their percentage of charitable giving, drop me a line at McHenry County Blog.

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Too Charitable to Obama?

When I wrote “Giving Obama His Due,” I based by story on this year’s income tax return.

A Tuesday story entitled, “For Obama, charity really began in the U.S. Senate,” by the Chicago Tribune’s Bob Secter today makes it clear that I may have offered too much credit.

Secter looked at income tax forms for both U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and Barack (note that I spelled it correctly this time without being reminded) Obama going back to 1997.

Obama’s contributions in 1997 appear to be a bit less than 1% of income, with $400 to his church. Durbin’s were a bit below 2%. Secter notes the national average is 2.2%.

The Biblical admonition is a minimum of 10%, the tithe.

Both politicians had increased their contributions to about 4½% by 2005.

Obama, as I calculated earlier, gave 6.1% to charities last year. Secter does note that Obama contributed just 4/10ths of one percent of his income--$1,050 as recently as 2002.

The recent ramp-up lets Obama avoid the 1998 ridicule of ridicule of Al Gore for contributing only $353.

Secter reports that Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ “encourages its members to donate 10 percent of their income…from 1997 through 2002, the Obamas reported devoting less than 1 percent of their household income to charity.”

While reporting the contributions and total income of President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the Tribune article left the calculations to the reader. Cheney was at 6.5%, while Bush gave 10.2%.

McHenry County Blog reported the 10.2% figure in a story comparing Bush’s percentage with Mayor Richard Daley’s.

More, of course, at McHenry County Blog.

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