Charity That Leaves No Child Behind.

As Jay Leno said the other night, “Today Warren Buffett announced he's giving away his multibillion-dollar fortune to charity rather than leaving it to his kids. He said he doesn't believe that somebody's son should inherit his father's "position in society." Today, President Bush immediately put him under surveillance.”

Well that pretty much sums it up doesn’t it?

Just about everyone is now familiar with the Bush family’s idea of charity as demonstrated by Barbara’s Katrina charitable giving:

Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.

Since then, the Ignite Learning program has been given to eight area schools that took in substantial numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

"Mrs. Bush wanted to do something specifically for education and specifically for the thousands of students flooding into the Houston schools," said Jean Becker, former President Bush's chief of staff. "She knew that HISD was using this software program, and she's very excited about this program, so she wanted to make it possible for them to expand the use of this program."

This is the Bush “Leave No Child Behind” program. That’s right, “earmark” your charitable giving to YOUR CHILD. And you get a tax break to boot. Works out nicely all around, eh!

Likewise, everyone should now be familiar with the results of the tax breaks this administration has given to the very, extremely, totally, ultra-wealthy. Here are some of the results for those that need reminding from the Citizens for Tax Justice:

New figures on the Bush tax cuts enacted through May of 2006, released on June 22, 2006 by Citizens for Tax Justice, show that the most recent tax changes, extending the tax breaks for dividends and capital gains through 2010, have made the tax cuts even more regressive and costly.

# Over ten years, the total cost of the Bush tax cuts has grown to $2.4 trillion, including added interest payments (reflecting the fact that the tax cuts have been financed entirely with borrowed money).

# By 2010, when the estate tax is slated to be eliminated, 51 percent of the total tax cuts will go to the best-off one percent of all taxpayers.

# Over the 2001-10 period, the average tax cut for the best-off one percent will total $483,000 — an average of $48,300 per year.

# In contrast, the average tax cut for middle-income Americans will average $659 a year over the same period.

# The average tax cut for the poorest 20 percent of all taxpayers will average only $77 a year over the ten years.

# As shares of income, the 10-year tax cuts will equal 0.7 percent of income for the poorest 20 percent and 1.7 percent of income for the next 79 percent. But for the top one percent, the tax cuts will average 3.9 percent of income.

Now after this little refresher course on how tax gifts to the wealthy, and the inherent value of the Paris Hilton Unearned Income Tax Repeal, we have the latest from the NYTimes. It is a report on the Charitable Giving of the Ultra-Wealthy since the obscene tax reduction gifts and charitable donations from the Republicans with America’s Charge Card to the Ultra-Wealthy. And it is not good news folks.

DUH!

PHILANTHROPY, like foie gras, is an acquired taste. And Warren Buffett embraced charity with extraordinary gusto last week, announcing that he would give away 85 percent of his $44 billion fortune.

His megagifts, like many of his investments, buck the popular trend. Giving by the richest Americans has fallen in recent years, with the biggest declines at the very top, based on deductions Americans take on their tax returns. Among Americans who at death left a taxable fortune of $20 million or more, the average charitable bequest fell by $2 million, or 9 percent, from 1995 to 2004.

Almost alone among rich Americans, Mr. Buffett has argued that estate taxes should be increased, not eliminated. Mr. Buffett says the estate tax helps build a vibrant economy of innovators and strivers — a true meritocracy — and that repealing it would risk a stunted economy controlled by aristocratic inheritors. Repealing the estate tax, he has said, would be the economic equivalent of "choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics."

Bill Gates, a founder of Microsoft and close friend of Mr. Buffett, has not taken a public position on the estate tax, but his father leads the movement to keep it. Few ultrarich families agree, and 18 have spent $500 million since 1994 lobbying for estate tax repeal, according to disclosure records examined by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy, which want to keep the tax.

How do they give compared with the Gates and Buffett families? In some prominent cases, not nearly as generously. The Walton family owns Wal-Mart stock worth more than $90 billion, more than twice the value of the Gates family's Microsoft stock. But the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is 35 times larger than the Walton Family Foundation, tax records show.

The Mars family, known for its candy company, has an estimated net worth of $12 billion. The Mars Foundation gave away $795,000 in 2004 — 97 grants averaging $8,200 each. The Walton Foundation gave away 127 times as much, the Gates Foundation more than 1,900 times. "The Waltons have said they will increase their charitable giving in the future," said Jay Allen, a family spokesman. The Mars Foundation said the family did not comment on such matters.

Maybe those 18 families think that the $500 million they spent lobbying for the Paris Hilton Unearned Income Tax Repeal is charitable giving just like the Bush family thinks that donations “earmarked” to Neil are charity. After all, I guess real philanthropy really is an acquired taste.

The concept of Noblesse Oblige, not so much.