So Queen Ann deigned to sit down with Natalie Morales in an interview that will air tomorrow. In clips released from said interview, Ann Romney has given 2012's "read my lips" speech..."No New Tax Returns".
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Poor Ann and Willard have been so persecuted over the incomplete tax returns that enough is enough for Pete's sake. The air of entitlement and how dare you people question us aside, she continues to seek credit for their charitable giving, citing their 10% to "charity". That 10% is their tithe to the LDS church. I imagine 10% of Romneybucks is a pretty healthy sum. Fine. We have freedom of religion and they can tithe to their church and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is her acting like this is something magnanimous when it's, if not compulsory, certainly expected with a formal process governing it. There is an annual meeting called a Tithing Settlement.
The link is directly to the lds.org website so I went straight to the source. I even "completed" the course you can take on how to conduct one of these.
I'm not LDS and I'm not criticizing their practice. What I am criticizing is Ann's hypocritical, arrogant,insulting and credit seeking that "we are charitable" when it's an expectation, and especially when thus far, there is limited to no evidence of any charitable giving commensurate with their wealth beyond their church. So let's look at the whole tithing settlement thing.
Each year ( Nov / December-ish) each family sits down with their Bishop to review their records of tithing and ensure things are in order. Romney probably conducted these during his tenure as Bishop.
While it's seemingly an honor system and lack of full tithing isn't necessarily enforced, with the amount of obsessive record keeping it's hard for me to believe you're going to easily get away without your full tithe, especially as a prominent family.
So tell me again Ann how it's generosity that drives your charitable giving, because it seems to me that when it's a core requirement, it's hardly the same as voluntarily writing a check from your Swiss Bank Account to a non-church related charity and thus why I call BS on your woe is me pity party. Just had to get that off my chest.