As Obama Bashes America’s Millionaires, Many Are Practically in His Own Backyard on The Hill
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on September 8, 2011
Pres. Obama has bashed and battered Americans who’ve legally earned a great deal of money, suggesting that millionaires not only didn’t work hard, take risks, and make sacrifices to acquire their wealth, they somehow don’t deserve to keep much of their money, but need to share it with others, must pay “their fair share.”
However, some of the millionaires in this country that the president chides are in close proximity to Barack’s Oval Office. Not only is a huge percentage of millionaires “Obama bundlers” and members of Congress, but quite a few are in the Supreme Court.
For all the Democrats’ hypocritical class warfare rhetoric, I doubt Minority House Leader and California Democrat congresswoman Nancy Pelosi would ever decry her own 62 percent increase in wealth this past year, making her one of the wealthiest members in Congress.
From Brendan Coffey, Forbes, How Rich Are The Supreme Court Justices?:
We all know Congress tends to be the domain of the wealthy (at last count, 46% of the House and 54% of the Senate are millionaires). Turns out the Supreme Court is too.
The average sitting Supreme Court justice is worth at least $2 million and possibly as much as $20 million a piece according to annual disclosure statements filed by the nine-member court.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which collects the disclosure forms filed by members of the three political branches and crunches the numbers, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the wealthiest judge on the court and skews that average heavily, with a net worth as high as $45.48 million and as low as $10.7 million.
The wide range is because justices, like senators, congresspeople and the president, are only required to disclosure in what value range their assets and liabilities fall. Ginsburg’s major assets include money market and tax-free (municipal bond and note) funds with JP Morgan worth between $1 and $5 million each as well as retirement accounts with TIAA-Cref potentially worth as much as $30 million or as low as $6 million, according to a scan of the filing on the Center’s website. The Center crunched the numbers for the fiscal 2009 year filings, filed in 2010. The 2010 disclosures have been filed this year but have not yet been analyzed.
For the breakdown on Supreme Court justices’ worth, click here.
On members of Congress — Queen Nancy Pelosi’s worth increased by a whopping 62 percent in just a year.
Reported by New York Daily News, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s wealth grows 62% to $35.2M, Boehner, Reid’s worth increases too:
What recession?
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s net worth skyrocketed 62% last year, to a jaw-dropping $35.2 million, according to financial disclosure forms released Wednesday.
Pelosi, the former House speaker, wasn’t alone.
The California Democrat’s gavel-gripping successor, Republican John Boehner, also saw his wealth get a boost, with the Ohio GOPer’s net worth increasing from $1.8 million in 2009 to $2.1 million last year.
Pelosi’s drastic growth, from an initial $21.7 million in 2009, is attributed to recent stock gains and smart investments. Her husband reported raking in $1 million to $5 million last year from a sale of Apple stocks.
[...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has a net worth of $3.4 million – a nearly 10% increase from 2009 to 2010.
Roll Call has compiled a list of the 50 richest members of Congress, which includes Democrat Sen. John Kerry ($188.37 million, the wealthiest member of Congress), Republican Rep. Darrell Issa ($160.05 million), Democrat Rep. Jane Harman ($152.62 million), and Democrat Sen. Jay Rockefeller ($81.50 million). The despicable Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson, booted out of Congress by Florida voters last fall, is worth a reported $31.41 million.
Blogger/journalist Michelle Malkin reported in 2010 that the 50 wealthiest lawmakers were worth almost $1.4 billion in 2009, about $85.1 million more than 12 months earlier — this was according to The Hill’s annual review of lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms.
And what about the Big Kahuna… Barack Obama?
While it’s sketchy what comprises the full extent of wealth Obama has (his allotted, tax-free expense account for travel costs of $100,000 per year and his $20,000 entertainment budget as “POTUS perks” are both clearly much smaller than what he actually spends/bills the American public), several sources, including MangoBoss.com, put his estimated worth through 2009 at more than $10 million.
It was also reported that for the 2009 tax year, Obama donated to charity the $1.4 million in Nobel Prize money he received. How much he donated to charity beyond that peace prize money has not been disclosed… I’m guessing it’s a big fat zero, because if weren’t, the liberal media would have been singing his praises about what a generous man he was.
Reported by the TaxProf Blog, posted in March of 2008:
Barack and Michelle Obama's tax return filings, 2000 - 2006
What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama’s membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity — well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years. In two of the years, the Obamas gave far less than 1% of their income to charity; in three of the years, they gave around 1% of their income to charity. Only in the last two years have they given substantially more as their income skyrocketed — 4.7% in 2005 and 6.1% in 2006. (Of course, it is possible that the Obamas may have made gifts to other worthy causes that were not deductible for federal income tax purposes.)
Barack’s book sales and Michelle’s $317,000-per-year salary at the University of Chicago Hospital catapulted their wealth in a short period of time.
Richard Henry Lee at New York Daily News deduced back in a May 2009 piece that the Obamas were up to their eyeballs in personal debt prior to Barack’s election to the Senate, his book selling like flapjacks, and Michelle’s 260-percent hospital raise. Lee calculated that “they spent perhaps $80,000 beyond their income from 1999 to 2004.”
So, whether they admit it or not, even if Michelle tries to play down their riches by wearing J Crew on the Tonight Show, they are among the loathsome, greedy millionaires that Pres. Obama denounces as often as possible in his always-in-campaign-mode speeches.
Want to bash a millionaire who flies willy-nilly, devil-may-care around the country in jets, Mr. President?
Just look in the mirror, then bash away.
H/t Missourah.com for the Obama mirror graphics.
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Great post, I caught this from Googling O’s charity giving, and tweeted it. Hope you get some hits. Good information here!
Thanks, Chicago Nick – appreciate the tweet and hope you pop in often!