*What Kind Of People Does Barack Obama Like To Have Close To Him?
*Millionaires
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-white-house-wealthapr09,0,1573304.story>.
When President Barack Obama moved into the White House earlier this
year, he took several of his fellow Chicago millionaires with him.
Newly released disclosure reports show virtually all of the top
Chicagoans serving in the West Wing had assets valued at a million
dollars or more at the end of 2008.
In several cases, the reports provide the first detailed look at the
finances of some of the president's top aides and friends from
Chicago who have risen with him. They also show the salary haircut
many have taken to be in the White House, at least until they return
to the private sector.
Some of the wealth can be attributed to the fact that the top staff
members surrounding Obama --- such as Chicagoans Rahm Emanuel, David
Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett --- are from a big city where salaries
tend to be higher. Many of the comparable senior staffers with the
previous two presidents came from Austin, Texas, and Little Rock,
Ark., where salaries for top professionals tend to be the lower than
in Chicago.
The Tribune reporter, John McCormick, tries to explain away Obama's
preference for millionaires in that last paragraph, but his explanation
doesn't go very far. Bush was not from Austin, but from Texas and Texas
has plenty of millionaires. Nor was Clinton from Little Rock, but from
Arkansas, and there are more millionaires in Arkansas than you might
think. And there are many, many capable people in Chicago, or more
broadly, Illinois, who are not millionaires. But Obama did not choose
any of those people for his closest aides.
McCormick does not mention something else of considerable importance:
Emanuel, Axelrod, and Jarrett all became millionaires through their
political connections.
- 10:51 AM, 9 April 2009
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
