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Kim, Putin have high hopes for 1st one-on-one

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Police: Armed robber stole Rottweiler from WB pet store

<p>FORT WORTH, Texas &#8212; Presidential hopeful Robert &#8220;Beto&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke released 10 years of tax returns recently. Good for him. It&#8217;s more than the sitting president has seen fit to do. But the compliments end there.</p><p>According to the Washington Post, O&#8217;Rourke and his wife reported a total income of $370,412 in 2017, the most recent year for which they released a return.</p><p>Plugging that figure into a Pew Research Center tax calculator means that the O&#8217;Rourke family is well within the top 10 percent of income earners in El Paso.</p><p>There&#8217;s no reason to begrudge their wealth, particularly when it&#8217;s earned.</p><p>Yet, the O&#8217;Rourkes reported only $1,166 of charitable giving that year &#8212; a total, the Post also notes, that constitutes &#8220;one-third of 1 percent&#8221; of the family&#8217;s income.</p><p>First, I will stipulate, most if not all of us could be more charitable. There are innumerable good causes and no shortage of need. But as a people, Americans are remarkably generous &#8212; giving an estimated $410 billion in 2017 &#8212; more than the GDP of countries such as Israel and Ireland, and most of that money is given by individuals, not corporations or foundations.</p><p>The O&#8217;Rourkes, apparently, are not among the more generous Americans; $1,166 is a surprisingly small sum for anyone of means, let alone a policymaker whose net worth was about $9 million in 2015, ranking him 51st out of 435 members in the House of Representatives in terms of wealth.</p><p>And it&#8217;s appallingly small for a presidential candidate whose platform includes all sorts of progressive economic programming that would increase taxes on middle class incomes, such as a $15 minimum wage and Medicare for all.</p><p>I&#8217;m not the only person who has noticed this disconnect.</p><p>At a campaign event in Virginia on Tuesday, a student asked O&#8217;Rourke &#8220;why, as someone who earns seven times the amount of income as (her sister), a recent college graduate, does, (O&#8217;Rourke) gives less in charitable donations &#8230; ?&#8221;</p><p>In reply, the former El Paso Congressman pointed first to his public service, then hinted that he and his wife didn&#8217;t keep comprehensive records of many of their donations.</p><p>But it wasn&#8217;t just bad accounting, O&#8217;Rourke continued. His generosity is exhibited by his gift of self. &#8220;I&#8217;m doing everything I can right now,&#8221; he said, &#8220;spending this time with you, not with our kiddos, not back home in El Paso because I want to sacrifice everything to make sure that we meet this moment of truth with everything that we&#8217;ve got.&#8221;</p><p>The crux of his defense, it seems, is that his decision to run for president is his true charity.</p><p>Of course, that doesn&#8217;t explain his lack of generosity in prior years &#8212; less than $900 in 2015 and 2016 &#8212; when he was merely a congressman.</p><p>In fairness, O&#8217;Rourke isn&#8217;t an anomaly among his White House-seeking peers, the most generous of whom appears to be Sen. Elizabeth Warren who reported donating about 5.5 percent of her income in 2007.</p><p>Charitable giving shouldn&#8217;t have a political edge, but data cited by Arthur Brooks shows that &#8220;conservative-headed&#8221; households &#8220;give, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a &#8216;liberal,&#8217;&#8221; even though the average liberal family earns 6 percent more per year than the average conservative family.</p><p>To that end, it&#8217;s worth pointing out how now-Sen. Mitt Romney was castigated for his wealth and vilified as a cold-hearted businessman during his 2012 presidential campaign, despite his undeniable financial generosity: he and his wife, Ann, gave 29.4 percent of their income to charity in 2011, a total of more than $4 million.</p><p>Between his live-streamed dental visits, punk rock performances and tabletop antics, O&#8217;Rourke does contribute a certain je ne sais quoi to the race. And O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s constant posturing along the border suggests migrants are a cause close to his heart.</p><p>I&#8217;m guessing that Catholic Charities, which runs comprehensive migrant and refugee services in O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s hometown, would much prefer a generous monetary donation from its native son. Sorry, but &#8220;spending this time&#8221; with us isn&#8217;t enough.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Cynthia M. Allen</p><p>Guest Columnist</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Cynthia M. Allen is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Readers may send her email at <a href="mailto:cmallen@star-telegram.com">cmallen@star-telegram.com</a>.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Their view: Beto O’Rourke’s uncharitable giving