The most surprising fact I learned yesterday:

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden released 10 years of tax returns Friday…The Bidens’ joint gross income hovered between $215,000 and $320,000 a year during this period…The amount they gave to charity during this period never exceeded one-half of 1% of their annual income. The Bidens never gave more than $995 to charity in any of the tax years, and usually gave much less.(Source)

Compare Biden’s behavior to that of a typical American:

The IRS reports that those who itemize deductions on their income tax returns have claimed, since 1975, that between 1.6 percent and 2.16 percent of their income went to charitable concerns. (Source)

This contrast is an example of a broader phenomenon:

conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure. Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes. (Source)

If Biden’s below-average charitable giving is typical of those with his political views, why am I surprised by it? Because this man has run for President more than once. He must have known there was a good chance that his tax returns would at some point be made public and undergo close scrutiny. He had a far greater-than-average personal motivation for charitable giving and, nonetheless, chose not to chip in.
Update: TaxProf provides a nice table summarizing Biden’s tax history:
The point: This is deplorable. Regardless of party, how can Americans trust someone like Joe Biden to redistribute the nation’s wealth, when he has shown on a consistent basis that is inadequete at redistributing his own wealth?!?!?!?! Talk about Patriotic.