50 Richest Members of Congress 2008  - RF Cafe Forums

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Kirt Blattenberger
 Post subject: 50 Richest Members of Congress 2008
Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:06 pm 
 
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Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 2:02 pm
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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

_________________
- Kirt Blattenberger :smt024
RF Cafe Progenitor & Webmaster




Posted  11/12/2012