Romney Camp Pokes Santorum Over Charitable Giving

UPDATE: Santorum's tax returns have revealed something that might—and Mitt Romney hopes will—hurt his evangelical street cred: relatively low charitable giving.

As CNN explains, Santorum gave just over 2 percent of his income to charity over the four years covered in the returns he released, reaching its lowest percentage in 2010 at 1.76 percent. For the same year, Romney gave 13.8 percent of his income to charity, and President Obama donated 14.2 percent. (Newt Gingrich, for comparison, gave away 2.6 percent)

Santorum's tax returns do not indicate where he donated. As is a running theme in the discussion of candidates' tax returns, "small" amounts of cash are actually pretty big numbers: The total amount Santorum donated over four years adds up to $81,500.

One of Romney's advisers, Mark DeMoss, has already poked Santorum over his giving, saying it "at best" indicates "political bad judgment." DeMoss, who is an evangelical Christian, told Politico that "at worst it shows a lack of personal commitment to a principle that religious conservatives and political conservatives believe in, which is being generous with our money."

CNN spoke to the CEO of Charity Navigator, Ken Berger, who appears to back up DeMoss'assertion that charitable giving is connected to religiosity. Citing research that indicates religious people donate more to charity than non-religious people, Berger said, "When you put [Santorum's charitable giving] in the context of people of faith, then it really is on the low side."

Santorum has a second charity problem: His now-defunct charity, Operation Good Neighbor, has been criticized for passing on a very small amount (by industry standards) of its donations to beneficiaries, using most of its money for operating costs, fundraising, and on Santorum's political allies, the Washington Post reports.

While Santorum has defended his work at Operation Good Neighbor, he has not yet responded to questions about his charitable giving in general.

Post Thursday, Feb. 16: Rick Santorum became the latest GOP candidate to give the public a peek into his financial records, releasing four years of tax returns Wednesday night showing that the White House hopeful earned an annual income of more than $900,000 over the past three years.

The documents show a major jump in his earning potential since he left public office and began working as a Washington-based corporate consultant and media pundit. Nevertheless, the former senator was quick to downplay his personal fortune—something that would have likely proved much more difficult if it weren't for the men he's up against for the GOP nomination.

"I don't have wealth," Santorum said while campaigning in North Dakota, Politico reports. "I don't have investments. I don't have capital gains. ... most of the assets that I ended up building was paying down a mortgage on my house that went down in value."

He continued: "So that's where most of my money went. But as far as the tax rates were concerned, [Mitt Romney] had dividend income, he had capital gains income and was taxed at 15 percent. I had ...income, which was taxed at a higher rate."

Santorum's returns cover 2007 through 2010 and were filed jointly with his wife Karen. Their adjusted gross income was $659,000 in 2007, $952,000 in 2008, $1.1 million in 2009, and $923,000 in 2010. They paid approximately $167,000 in taxes in 2007, $262,000 in 2008, $310,000 in 2009, and $263,000 in 2010. Their tax rates ranged from 29 percent to 25 percent over the four years.

The Associated Press dissected the sources of Santorum's income since leaving the Senate, using both the returns and last year's financial disclosures. They found that Santorum made about $550,000 in media and consulting fees last year, and $820,000 in fees in 2009. In addition to media work—including $230,000 for appearing on Fox News—Santorum also worked on a consulting basis for lobbying firms promoting corporate and other interests.  

The Santorums have seven kids, and claimed several of them as dependents, as Politico noted.

The returns are much less labyrinthine than those of Romney and Gingrich, who made $21.7 million and just over $3 million in 2010 respectively, but still might pose a bump in the road for Santorum's bid to relate to working class America.