Remember When?

Remember when government was "of the People, by the People, and for the People?" Well....

It doesn't seem that way today, does it?

The link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29235.html

" Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall. "

Um...wow. I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not a millionaire. That's not to say I couldn't put that money to good use:

1) Pay off bills
2) Ensure the financial well-being of my family
3) Put money into the bank (NOT those that have taken TARP monies) to ensure my future financial well-being, and
4) Donate to charities.

Now let's remember back when Mr McCain was rightly chastised by the Democrats for not remembering how many houses he had. Each of those properties adds to his net worth, as it does for each member who is listed in the report. But to quote again from the report:

" One caveat on those numbers: Federal financial disclosure laws don’t require members to list the value of their personal residences. That information could alter the net worth picture for many lawmakers. " (emphasis added)

It certainly could. Let's use Mr McCain as an example. Let's assume he has a net worth currently of $14 million (for the record, I have no idea what his net worth is. This is a hypothetical situation and I selected the number at random.)

For the sake of this article, let's further assume (again, hypothetically) that he has six houses (residences) and that each of these are valued at $250,000.

Now it's time for more math (sorry!!) 6 x 250,000 = 1,500,000.

Since he's not required to list the value of those residences, let's assume he didn't. His net worth was $14 million, but we've just increased it by $1.5 million.

We've increased his net worth by 9.3%. (14,000,000 / 1,500,000 = 9.333333333)

Again, this is a hypothetical situation using hypothetical numbers. But if we were to add in the residences of many of those members, the numbers given in the article would be even greater.

Again, I don't know about you - but I don't have two houses.

But one quick exit question: Mr Obama wants to increase taxes on the millionaires. Will that include the members listed in the report or not?

If not, why not?

Just asking.