Transparency above and beyond

As you may have garnered from my writings by this time, among other important qualities, there are two "biggies" for me regarding what makes a qualified candidate.

1.) A candidate who works for the PEOPLE and NOT for special interests or members of the "political donor class".
2.) A middle class individual who has walked the walk of the people he'll be representing.

It should come as no surprise, that I believe Sheldon Schafer excels in these two qualities. Furthermore, he has taken a big step to prove it.

As he crossed the threshold of receiving $5,000 worth of campaign contributions, he was required by law to do some filings. Well he took it one step further and decided to publish his PERSONAL tax returns for the last two years openly. He did this because it shows exactly how he puts (and gets) his money where his mouth is. If you review his records posted on his website, you'll see the following things:

1.) A middle class income
2.) Generous to charity
3.) NO income from special interests of any type.

Go to http://www.schaferforcongress.info/bio.html to see his bio, where at the bottom you'll find a link to a PDF of those tax returns.

He has called on his opponents to do the same. Read about it here. Admirably, Colleen Callahan, took the challenge and did the same. So far Schock's camp has chosen not to follow suit, despite being explicitly called upon to do the same by both Schafer and Callahan.

In case you don't go to his tax records, I'd like to point out exactly how generous to charity he really is. I'm no accountant, so I could be missing some gross vs. net whatnot, but it would appear that in 2007, he gave roughly 50% of the total household wage income (it's a joint return with his wife) to charity!!!! ...again, I'm no accountant, and according to the records, he got some income from investment or something beyond his salary, so even if you factor that in, he still gave around 33% of the households GROSS earnings of any type to charity!!! I think this should leave no question about his intentions and proves how much of a passion for the people around him he has. !!!

EDIT: Just verified with a CPA that my numbers above are correct. He emphasized that the 33% figure is the ethical statistic to point out "since adjusted gross income would really be the appropriate denominator". Whatever that means. :)

UPDATE: After Sheldon read this, he felt it an ethical commitment to clarify the reason for the extent of his generosity in 2007:
"Actually, 2007 was an unusual year as far as contributions go. Usually [his wife]Mary Ann and I try to give about 10% to charity but in 2007 Mary Ann's mother died, and Mary Ann gave a large donation to the OSF facility that cared for her mother the last three years in memory of her mother and in recognition of the fine care she received at St. Clare Home."