Beto O’Rourke Gives Bizarre Answer When Asked About His Stingy Charitable Donations

Robert “Beto” O’Rourke has had a rough roll out for his 2020 presidential campaign. First he dissed his wife, then he became an internet meme for standing atop counters in diners across the country.

And now he’s being questioned about why he gives so little to charities.

On Tuesday, O’Rourke was confronted by a voter during a University of Virginia town hall about his paltry charitable giving. He released tax returns that showed he and his wife had given just $1,166 to charity in 2017 — even though they hauled in more than $370,000 that year. If you don’t want to do the math, that’s less than one-third of 1 percent of their income.

Washington Post correspondent Jenna Johnson said a student “asked the former Texas representative why her sister, who was a recent college graduate, donated more to charity while making much less than he and his wife.”

O’Rourke’s answer was spectacular — the kind only a Democrat could deliver with a straight face.

“I’ve served in public office since 2005. I do my best to contribute to the success of my community, of my state, and now, of my country. There are ways that I do this that are measurable and there are ways that I do this that are immeasurable. There are charities that we donate to that we’ve recorded and itemized, others that we have donated to that we have not,” he said.

Yup, you read that right: He said they sometimes give to charities and just don’t take the tax deduction.

O’Rourke also said just appearing before the town hall full of students should be considered charitable act.

“I’m doing everything that I can right now, 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’ve got,” O’Rourke said. No word if he’ll try to write that off on his 2019 tax return.

Later, O’Rourke said he’d actually given “thousands of dollars” to charity, The Hill reported.

Speaking to reporters outside of a Virginia coffee shop after a campaign rally that attracted about 300 supporters, O’Rourke said he’d given thousands of dollars more to charities but did not keep records of it all.

“We made donations to so many organizations in small amounts, hundreds of dollars, in larger amounts, thousands of dollars, this is beyond what is itemized or reflected in our taxes, and we just didn’t report it because it wasn’t important for us to take the deduction,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke’s stinginess follows news that Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Socialist from Vermont doesn’t give much of his money away, either. In 2016, Sanders hauled in $1,062,626, much of that from a book about his socialist plans if elected president. That year, according to his newly released tax forms, he donated just $10,600 to charity. That makes him a different kind of 1 Percenter — he gave less than 1% of his cool million to charity.

In 2017, he made $1,131,925, and gave $36,300 to charity — just 3.2%.

His lowest, according to the forms he released, was 2012, when he donated just .68% of his income. His highest was 2014, when he gave slightly more than 4%.

https://twitter.com/AndrewKerrNC/status/1117922498413305856

O’Rourke, though, is rolling in dough. “O’Rourke had a net worth of about $9 million in 2015 and ranked 51st out of 435 members in the House of Representatives in terms of wealth, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics,” Newsweek reports. “O’Rourke also married into wealth. The woman he married in 2005, Amy Hoover Sanders, is the daughter of real estate tycoon William Sanders, whom The New York Times called a billionaire, but his net worth was closer to $500 million, Forbes estimated in November. The Times described Sanders as “one of the most influential figures in a region ruled by mercantile interests.”

But he sure doesn’t like giving his money away. But with Democrats, it’s always do as I say, not as I do.

 

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