Cindy McCain: Like Hubby, Not So Charitable

By Ken Silverstein

Senator John McCain’s charitable works don’t appear to be terribly impressive. As I reported here a few months back, he has essentially been the sole contributor to the John and Cindy McCain Family foundation, which between 2001 and 2006 made contributions of roughly $1.6 million, of which more than $500,000 went to his kids’ private schools. So McCain apparently received major tax deductions for supporting elite schools attended by his children.

Last Friday, wife Cindy — heiress to Hensley & Co. and a major Anheuser-Busch distributor—whose net worth is approximately $100 million — “cav[ed] to overwhelming pressure…and finally released a two page summary of her 2006 tax return,” reports perrspectives.com. “A quick glance at the filing explains her hesitation to let her tax returns see the light of day. As it turns out, Mrs. McCain gave only 1% of her $6 million income to charity in 2006.” And just like her husband, most of her contributions “went to private schools attended by her children.”

Note: Perrspectives.com added an update to say, “It is not possible to gauge the full scope of Mrs. McCain’s charitable contributions based solely on the limited disclosure Friday…[She] Her may well have given more than 1% of her $6 million income to charity in 2006 from separate assets. But without either the release of her full return—or a statement from the McCain campaign—we’ll never know.”