While Libs Horde Their Cash, Trump Gave 1st Quarter Salary To Help Vets
Prior to winning the 2016 election, then-candidate Donald Trump vowed to not accept the salary due his position and promised to instead donate it to a worthy cause within the federal government that fit his agenda and priorities.
According to Politifact, President Trump has thus far made good on that promise to the American people, and has now donated his entire presidential salary at each quarter since taking office.
It was announced Thursday that Trump’s $400,000 salary for the first quarter of 2018 would be donated to the Department of Veterans Affairs, specifically to support a special caregiver program.
That donation was accepted by the VA’s Acting Secretary Robert Wilkie, who said the money would help fund “caregiver support in the form of mental health and peer support programs, financial aid, education training and research.”
Trump’s fourth quarter salary for 2017 was given to the Department of Transportation, specifically to the INFRA grant program that distributes funds for critical infrastructure needs involving bridges, highways and ports.
The president’s third quarter salary was donated to the Department of Health and Human Services, with the specific intent of helping address the opioid abuse and addiction crisis.
His salary for the second quarter of 2017 went to the Department of Education to help fund special children’s camps devoted to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning.
Trump’s partial salary for the first quarter of 2017 was donated to the National Parks Service, which went toward maintaining the infrastructure at various civil war battlefields.
It should also be pointed out that those donations were made pre-tax at 100 percent of his received salary.
By way of comparison, a tax and business strategy firm known as Tax Warriors looked at the charitable giving of previous presidents in 2016, and found that former President Barack Obama donated varying amounts over the years of his tenure in office, from as little as 5.85 percent in 2009 to as much as 22.66 percent in 2012.
Former President George W. Bush also donated varying amounts over his years in office, with a low of 8.17 percent in 2002 to a high of 17.7 percent in 2007.
Former President Richard Nixon may have been the only president to come close to Trump’s generosity, as he donated roughly 50 percent of his income in three of the four years of his first term.
Meanwhile, in 2014 The Fiscal Times reported on an in-depth study of charitable philanthropic giving which found “giving patterns” on a state-level basis that aligned with the 2012 presidential vote. Namely, the states in which people donated the highest percentage of their income voted for Mitt Romney and the states with people that donated the lowest percentages voted for Obama.
Of course, there are those who would dismiss the “conventional wisdom” that conservatives are more generous than liberals overall, but numbers don’t lie and the increased rates of giving among conservatives are usually attributed to higher rates of religiosity, meaning conservatives are more likely to attend church and make donations than liberals.
Regardless of any alleged difference in charitable giving among political ideologies, it is hard to argue against Trump’s donation of his salary to worthy causes, which is just one more of his many promises that he has kept.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
