Obama: It's Money, Money, Money that they love.

Versus the evil Republicans who love money!

Former Dem. Congressman Kennedy Alleges 'Quid Pro Quo' for Access to White House

8:42 AM, Apr 15, 2012

By DANIEL HALPER

 

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Access to the Obama White House is in direct correlation to the amount of money donated to the president's reelection effort and the Democratic party, the New York Times reports today.
The Times reports: "those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others. Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percent visited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the figure rises to about 75 percent. Approximately two-thirds of the president’s top fund-raisers in the 2008 campaign visited the White House at least once, some of them numerous times."
But the most explosive allegation in the news story comes from former Democratic congressman Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Ted Kenney, who calls what the Obama White House is doing "quid pro quo."

Patrick J. Kennedy, the former representative from Rhode Island, who donated $35,800 to an Obama re-election fund last fall while seeking administration support for a nonprofit venture, said contributions were simply a part of “how this business works.”
“If you want to call it ‘quid pro quo,’ fine,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to make sure I do my part.”
Mr. Kennedy visited the White House several times to win support for One Mind for Research, his initiative to help develop new treatments for brain disorders. While his family name and connections are clearly influential, he said, he knows White House officials are busy. And as a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said he was keenly aware of the political realities they face.
And Kennedy admits that folks in the White House are checking out the donor records:

“I know that they look at the reports,” he said, referring to records of campaign donations. “They’re my friends anyway, but it won’t hurt when I ask them for a favor if they don’t see me as a slouch.”

Literally translated, "quid pro quo" means "something for something." As in, if you want something from the Obama White House, then give something (e.g., cash).

obam,a 

Donations: Who Gave What and How Much to Mr. Obama?

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families.
University of California $1,591,395

Goldman Sachs $994,795

Harvard University $854,747

Microsoft Corp $833,617

Google Inc $803,436

Citigroup Inc $701,290

JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132

Time Warner $590,084

Sidley Austin LLP $588,598

Stanford University $586,557

National Amusements Inc $551,683

UBS AG $543,219

Wilmerhale Llp $542,618

Skadden, Arps et al $530,839

IBM Corp $528,822

Columbia University $528,302

Morgan Stanley $514,881

General Electric $499,130

US Government $494,820   <-- this one is puzzling?

Latham & Watkins $493,835

Source:  Center for Responsive Politics
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
donations

Happiness and Donations

Just a simple question.

Based upon the preceding 4-5 posts concerning giving and a couple concerning happiness, is there any correlation between giving and those states which give, and happiness?

I would assume we could look at each state and as long as you get several more in one category or the other, it would be enough to at least make a general statement as to the condition of happiness and giving.









happiness

Charitable Giving - States and Voting

donations

Which States Give More? Donations -

Private Source







Cost of Living Makes Big Difference in State Giving Rankings, Study Finds

By Harvy Lipman
2001


Taxpayers in rural southern and western states give the highest percentage of their earnings to charity, but a Chronicle analysis of newly released federal data shows that when the higher cost of living in urban states like New York and Illinois is taken into account, residents of those states donate a much larger share of their estimated disposable income than has previously been reported.

In California, for instance, taxpayers earning between $75,000 and $100,000 a year on average donated 2.6 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity. But when those taxpayers' incomes are adjusted to account for the state's cost of living, the share of their remaining disposable income given to charity rises to 7.1 percent.

Over all, Americans who itemized deductions on their federal income-tax returns gave a little more than 3 percent of their earnings to charity in 1999, a percentage that has remained unchanged for the past three years. Those taxpayers claimed a total of $122.2-billion in deductions for charitable donations in 1999, up from $107.4-billion the previous year. Taxpayers' charitable deductions varied widely across income levels and geographic regions. Among returns of taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of less than $20,000, those who itemized deductions gave an average of about 11 percent to charity. Only a small number of taxpayers in that income bracket -- fewer than 6 percent -- itemize their deductions, however.

Those with the highest incomes -- more than $1-million a year -- claimed deductions for charitable giving equal to 4.6 percent of their total earnings. More than 90 percent of those taxpayers itemized their deductions.


State Comparisons

Comparing actual giving across income brackets and different states is difficult, because the percentage of taxpayers who itemize deductions varies considerably. That is important because tax and philanthropy experts believe that people who don't itemize give less -- both in terms of total dollars and as a percentage of income -- than those who do.

For the first time in its annual analyses of the tax data, The Chronicle took into account the varying costs of living in different parts of the country, subtracted living expenses from the total income within income categories for each state, and then computed what percentage of taxpayers' remaining -- or disposable -- income was claimed for charitable donations.

That new calculation did not make much difference in the state rankings for taxpayers earning more than $200,000. That result would be expected, given the limited effect that living costs like housing and food have on the wealthy. However, for taxpayers with incomes of $75,000 to $200,000, the new measurement drastically changes the rankings of states where most residents live in urban areas.



Utah Tops Rankings

In every income bracket, Utah taxpayers were the most generous. Researchers have generally ascribed the high giving rates in Utah to its high population of Mormons, whose religion requires that church members tithe 10 percent of their income to the church. Wyoming taxpayers with incomes above $1-million gave a slightly higher percentage of their income to charity than did those in Utah, but Wyoming's numbers are skewed significantly because only 78 percent of its highest-earning residents itemized deductions, versus 94 percent of Utah taxpayers.

However, when the cost of living is taken into account, several states move up significantly from where they would be ranked if those costs were not used to analyze giving. In the $75,000-to-$100,000 annual income category, for example, Maryland's taxpayers were the third most generous in the nation once their giving was adjusted for living costs -- up from No. 18 when the dollar figures were not adjusted.

Among the states whose rankings drop when living costs are factored in for the $75,000-to-$100,000 income category: Montana, which moved from 34 to 48, and West Virginia, which dropped from 29 to 46.

New Tax Break

The vast majority of taxpayers, however, do not itemize their deductions and therefore cannot receive any tax benefit from making charitable donations. The House of Representatives last month passed legislation that would allow taxpayers who do not itemize to claim charitable deductions of up to $25 in 2002; the amount would be double for couples filing jointly.

The Chronicle analyzed giving by lower-income taxpayers who do itemize their deductions, and found that those with incomes of less than $20,000 gave an average of about $850. Those with incomes of $20,000 to $30,000 donated an average of $1,280, and those earning between $30,000 and $50,000 gave an average of $1,525.

Patricia Read, a vice president at Independent Sector, said her group's research shows that low-income taxpayers who itemize deductions donate about $300 annually to charity, while those who do not itemize give only about $30. That, she said, is because taxpayers in lower income-tax brackets who itemize deductions tend to be wealthier, retired people whose taxable income is low.


*****************************************

From 2003, same source - The Chronicle of Philanthropy


80 Percent of Donations




The Chronicle's studies of giving by city, county, and state are based on Internal Revenue Service records of Americans who earned $50,000 or more and itemized their deductions, representing 18 percent of all U.S. taxpayers and accounting for nearly 54 percent of all money earned in the nation. Those taxpayers donated $97-billion to charity, about 80 percent of the total $122-billion donated by all individuals in 1997, according to estimates compiled by Giving USA, the study of charitable giving published by the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. Since people who don't itemize don't report their donations, little reliable data are available on people who make less than $50,000.






 
 
 
 
 
donations

Conservatives give more than Liberals

March 27, 2008


Conservatives More Liberal Givers

By George Will



WASHINGTON -- Residents of Austin, Texas, home of the state's government and flagship university, have very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming "Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty," "The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India)," "Jesus Is a Liberal," "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans," "Republicans Are People Too -- Mean, Selfish, Greedy People" and so on. But Willett thinks Austin subverts a stereotype: "The belief that liberals care more about the poor may scratch a partisan or ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses."

Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.

If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:

-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and "the values that lie beneath" liberal and conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of government.

The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.

Reviewing Brooks' book in the Texas Review of Law & Politics, Justice Willett notes that Austin -- it voted 56 percent for Kerry while he was getting just 38 percent statewide -- is ranked by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as 48th out of America's 50 largest cities in per capita charitable giving. Brooks' data about disparities between liberals' and conservatives' charitable giving fit these facts: Democrats represent a majority of the wealthiest congressional districts, and half of America's richest households live in states where both senators are Democrats.

While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state, and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes. Ralph Nader, running for president in 2000, said: "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." Brooks, however, warns: "If support for a policy that does not exist ... substitutes for private charity, the needy are left worse off than before. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are apparently taking the place of help for others."



In 2000, brows were furrowed in perplexity because Vice President Al Gore's charitable contributions, as a percentage of his income, were below the national average: He gave 0.2 percent of his family income, one-seventh of the average for donating households. But Gore "gave at the office." By using public office to give other peoples' money to government programs, he was being charitable, as liberals increasingly, and conveniently, understand that word.











donations

Follow the Money

Many big donors using a loophole in presidential race

By Michael Luo and Griff Palmer
Published: October 20, 2008

Much of the attention on the record amounts of money coursing through the presidential race this year, including Senator Barack Obama's announcement Sunday of his $150 million fund-raising bonanza in September, has focused on the explosion of small donors.

But there has been a less-remarked-upon proliferation on the national fund-raising landscape: the rise of mega-donors, a group of givers with arguably greater potential to influence the candidates.

Enabled by a loophole in campaign finance laws, they have written giant checks, which far exceed normal individual contribution limits to candidates, to joint fund-raising committees that benefit both the candidates and their respective parties.

The committees have been used far more heavily in this presidential election than in the past, in part because Senator John McCain's campaign has taken the concept to new levels, enabling donors to write checks of more than $70,000.

Obama's campaign has also leaned on large givers to contribute up to $33,100 at a time to complement his army of small donors over the Internet as he bypassed public financing for the general election. As a result, both candidates have nearly 2,000 people each who have given $25,000 or more to them through September.

"What we're seeing is an emphasis on the high-end check that we have not seen since the days of soft money," said Anthony Corrado Jr., a campaign finance expert at Colby College in Maine.

A New York Times analysis of donors who wrote checks of $25,000 or larger to the candidates' main joint fund-raising committees through August found some notable differences in the industries that Obama and McCain are drawing their largest contributions from.

The biggest portion of money from these mega-donors for both candidates came from the securities and investment industry. For McCain, the next-biggest group was real estate, and then donors who identified themselves as retired. With his emphasis on offshore drilling, McCain has also enjoyed heavy support from wealthy benefactors in the oil and gas industry, a group Obama drew relatively little from.

Besides those in the finance world, Obama drew the most in large checks from retired donors and lawyers - a group McCain collected significantly less in large checks from - followed by those in real estate and then business services, like management consulting.

Donations from the private equity and hedge fund industries accounted for a significantly greater amount of the giving from McCain's largest donors, compared with Obama, with donors perhaps fearing additional regulations that Obama has proposed. The Democrat was much more popular among generous benefactors in the entertainment industry than McCain.

The surge in contributions to these joint fund-raising committees - they have already taken in nearly $300 million this year through September, with McCain collecting slightly more than Obama, compared with just $69 million in 2004 - is a worrisome trend to some campaign finance watchdog groups.

They argue that the heavy emphasis on such arrangements brings candidates one step further into the embrace of major donors who are writing checks to them far larger than they could normally give.

Individuals are normally limited to contributing $2,300 to presidential candidates for the primary and another $2,300 for the general election, if the candidates are not taking public financing.

More than 1,800 people, however, had donated $25,000 or more as of the end of September to McCain through his various "Victory" committees, as the joint fund-raising committees are dubbed, according to Federal Election Commission filings and data compiled by Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group. More than 300 people have contributed $50,000 or more.

As for Obama, more than 1,900 people donated $25,000 or more to his joint fund-raising committees through the end of September.

The utility of such joint fund-raising committees, which were first used in a significant way at the presidential level by Senator John Kerry's campaign in 2004, is that they conglomerate contributions for various entities together into a single committee under the banner of the candidate. They offer convenience for major donors and afford them a sense of greater clout with the writing of a single large check, as opposed to several smaller ones.

The larger checks to the joint fund-raising committees are made possible because donors can contribute up to $28,500 to the national parties and $10,000 to state parties. The parties can spend on behalf of the candidates under certain restrictions.

McCain finance officials introduced their main joint fund-raising committee, McCain Victory 2008, in the spring. McCain was still able to accept primary money, so money raised through the victory committee was divvied up between his primary campaign coffers, the Republican National Committee, several state parties and a legal compliance fund for the general election. In a measure of how quickly such committees could amass cash, the opening fund-raiser for the victory committee in New York in May brought in $7 million.






Money

Which one of these doesn't belong ...

I always liked that bit on Sesame Street. I was usually wrong in my selection, but I enjoyed it none the less.

This bit, no less entertaining, but the real question is ... what's wrong with the following:

Hillary Clinton has a fund raiser in NY City at Radio City. Elton John is present as are all the Clintonistas and anyone who likes Elton (by this time, old foggies come to mind).

Bill introduces his wife, solicits money and Elton offers his bit of profundity:

"I never cease to be amazed at the misogynist attitude of some of the people in this country," he said. "I say to hell with them."

NOW ... let's think. What could he be referring to and who was a little uncomfortable as he said it!

Donations

I will build on this post as I find more information, but here is the question of the day:
Who gives more in donations? Blue or Red states. Who gives more to the poor, needy, those who eek out a living and may need a little assistance - which states give more to help? Blue or Red?

The answer is RED.



The leading character at the moment among the Blue, is Barack Obama and he may not want everyone to know exactly how much they gave in donations/charity / those in need. The answer is 1% of his income. "The Obamas' donations to all recipients totaled $2,350 in 2000, $1,470 in 2001, $1,050 in 2002, $3,400 in 2003, and $2,500 in 2004. They also paid federal taxes totaling $311,044 during the same period on their $1.2 million of income."