Academic

Given that there has been a lot of rhetoric in the presidential race on “being a regular guy (or woman),” Paul Caron’s post on the candidates’ released tax returns is informative.

Much has been made concerning the candidates’ relative charitable giving. Personally, I really don’t consider charitable giving to be a relevant consideration in choosing a president, but if we are going to go down this road, then it probably makes some sense to combine the incomes of candidates and their spouses in making these calculations.  As I recall from 2004 this can be a point of contention for wealthy candidate spouses and Mrs. Kerry only released a very limited version of her tax returns. I’m sure that this is what the McCains will end up doing if they haven’t already done it.  Suffice it to say, their combined income will dwarf Senator McCain’s and likely put his relative charitable giving in better perspective. For the Obamas the combining of incomes will probably prove fairly inconsequential. In the meantime, perhaps the chart below will provide some helpful information on the Elite/Joe Six Pack question regarding the candidates.