"Caring" and Other People's Money

I don't know why I thought about this today, but sometimes I get a little frustrated when politicians (particularly liberal ones, but some "conservatives" are doing the same thing) talk about how much they "care" and when you ask them what they will do about their deep concern their answer usually revolves around spending government (taxpayer) money and creating another government agency to manage it.  This does beg the question... "is this caring?"  

I mean, here's the deal... I care about poverty, the environment, giving hope to people that need hope... but as a conservative I don't want the government to take on my causes for me, I want to work myself to make that happen... donating to charities, volunteering on a Habitat build, sponsoring a child or two for Compassion, buying a hybrid, recycling my plastic and aluminum.  You know.  What bugs me, however, is when someone "cares" but doesn't put any skin in the game to fix the issue other than going to the ballot box and voting Democrat... it seems like you're caring with Other People's Money (OPM).  Look at Bill Gates... he is devoting a huge chunk of his own personal fortune to find a cure for AIDS through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation... Jimmy Carter started Habitat for Humanity and devotes (or has devoted) significant time and resource to making that happen.  And there are countless examples of people that give sacrificially of their own time and resource to make this place a better world... THAT is caring.  Voting to take other peoples money away to support causes through the government.... come on, is that really caring?  

By the way, the reason (largely) we are in the economic crisis we are in is that we have funded our greed with OPM... do we want to risk more by funding our altruism with OPM too?  To tell you the truth, with a $455 billion deficit, the government probably already is.

A wise person once told me (can't say when) that the two signs of a person's character are their calendar and their checkbook (this was back before Internet banking).  Do they spend their time doing the type of things they claim are valuable to them and do they devote resources to them?  An interesting tidbit... I pulled up the two Democratic candidates' tax return summaries from the internet, and it's amazing to see how much Hillary and Obama both devote... gotta say I have more respect for HRC now... but the man who want's to spread the wealth around isn't spreading much of his own around... less than 6% to charity (this didn't break it down), and that not until after 2005 (when his Presidential ambitions became real)... before it was less than 2%... you see a similar trend for Hillary Clinton but her base giving still greater (as a percentage) to Obama's peak giving.  

Barak Obama's trends:

Hillary Clinton's trends:

I didn't include John McCain's tax returns, because we've all prejudged that since he's a Republican that he obviously doesn't "care." :-)... comment would be welcome here.