Greetings:
Here are the latest results of who's got the most money in the U.S.
Congress. These are the people who ostensibly know how the rest of us live, and govern
accordingly. You can bet that most of this top ten (summarized below) own multiple homes,
vehicles, and companies. This is a good arguement for term limits if there ever was
one.
Notice that #1 and #2 are nearly 10x higher than #10.
This is just
a partial account from Roll Call.
The 50 Richest
Members of Congress September 22, 2008, 12:00 a.m.
By Paul
Singer, Jennifer Yachnin and Casey Hynes
Roll Call Staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything that you are about to read might be wrong.
Roll Call’s annual attempt
to rank the riches of Members of Congress is hampered by one fundamental flaw: It is
based on the lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms, which are extraordinarily unreliable
sources of information.
The disclosure rules allow Members to report assets
in broad categories, so there is no way to tell the difference between a $20 million
investment and a $5 million investment. The top category on the Members’ forms is “over
$50 million,” so it is impossible to accurately account for anything worth more than
that — like a professional sports team, for example. There is also a gaping loophole
for assets owned by the Members’ spouse or dependent children; anything worth more than
$1 million in value can be reported as “over $1 million.” There is no way to tell whether
that is $1.2 million or $1.2 billion.
The rules also don’t require reporting
things of value that are not used to produce income — most notably any primary residence
or other home that is not used for rentals. That loophole removes from most Members’
portfolios hundreds of thousands of dollars and in come cases millions of dollars worth
of assets. Airplanes, fancy cars, antiques or other valuable items are not reported.
<read the full story for more details>
1. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
$230.98 million
[In an April 2008 article, Forbes.com estimated Heinz Kerry’s
net worth at $1 billion]
2. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)
$225.96 million
3. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)
$160.62 million
4. Sen. Jay Rockefeller
(D-W.Va.)
$80.40 million
[hard to believe Rockefeller is only worth $80M]
5. Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.)
$78.96 million
6. Rep. Vern Buchanan
(R-Fla.)
$65.49 million
7. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
$55.33 million
8. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
$52.34 million
9. Sen. Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass.)
$47.62 million
[Kennedy, only $47M - right]
10. Sen.
Gordon Smith (R-Ore.)
$28.65 million
