PHILADELPHIA, April 16, 2008
Obama Releases Tax Returns
Candidate's 2007 Income $4.2 Million; Earnings Came Largely From Books
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Photo Essay Barack Obama A look at the life and meteoric rise of the president-elect.
In tax returns the campaign released Wednesday, the Obamas reported a significant jump in their income from the previous year as profits from the books "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope" accounted for some $4 million. The Obamas paid federal taxes of $1.4 million and donated $240,370 to charity.
Their salaried income was $260,735, which included his $157,102 salary as a U.S. senator and hers of $103,633 as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
For part of 2007, Michelle Obama collected a salary for serving on the board of Westchester, Ill.-based TreeHouse Foods Inc., which produces pickles, nondairy powdered creamer and other products. She resigned in May after two years on the board.
The position had generated some complaints because TreeHouse is a supplier to Wal-Mart, and Barack Obama has criticized some of Wal-Mart's policies and treatment of employees.
The Obamas reported $29,443 from Treehouse Foods.
In 2006, Obama and his wife reported income of $991,296. The sum included Obama's Senate salary of $157,082 and his wife's earnings of $273,618 from her position as an administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle Obama also earned $51,200 in director's fees from TreeHouse Inc., a food distributor.
They paid $277,431 in federal taxes — an overpayment of $40,856, which they designated for estimated tax payments this year.
Among the charitable donations in 2007 was $26,270 to Trinity United Church of Christ, where the incendiary sermons of Obama's former pastor have created problems for the candidate. The Obamas' largest charitable donation was $50,000 to the United Negro College Fund. They also gave $35,000 to CARE.
The campaign released the returns just hours before a candidate debate with rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
By comparison, Clinton and her husband, the former president, reported $20.4 million in income for 2007. Almost half the former first couple's money came from Bill Clinton's speeches. The Clintons made nearly $109 million since leaving the White House in 2001, capitalizing on lucrative business ventures and his speaking engagements.
Likely Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has not released his tax returns for 2007. McCain is routinely ranked among the richest senators, but a prenuptial agreement has kept most assets in his wife's name. As heiress to her father's stake in Phoenix-based Hensley & Co., a beer distributor, Cindy McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million.
The release of the returns comes as Obama has fought criticism that his comments about bitter voters in small towns smack of elitism. Campaigning in Indiana on Wednesday, Michelle Obama rejected that characterization, pointing out that the couple were fortunate enough to pay off their academic loans because of her husband's two books.
Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University, Michelle Obama from Princeton. Both attended Harvard Law School.
"I am a product of a working-class background, I am one of those folks who grew up in that struggle. That is the lens through which I see the world," Michelle Obama said, referring to her family that lived on the South side of Chicago on her father's city salary.
You can see the Obamas' 2007 returns here.
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See all 53 CommentsWhy is Barack Obama so comfortable around people who so despise America and its allies? Maybe it%u2019s because they%u2019re so comfortable around him.
He presents as the transcendent agent of %u201Cchange.%u201D Sounds platitudinous, but it%u2019s really quite strategically vaporous. Sen. Obama is loath to get into the details of how we should change, and, as the media%u2019s Chosen One, he hasn%u2019t had to.
But he%u2019s not, as some hopefully dismiss him, a charismatic lightweight with a gift for sparkling the same old vapid cant. Judging from the company he chooses to keep, Obama%u2019s change would radically alter this country. He eschews detail because most Americans don%u2019t believe we%u2019re a racist, heartless, imperialist cesspool of exploitation. The details would be disqualifying.
Be Careful Who You VOte FORE
Research Obama Past and its *** right scary.
canadafreepress.com/index.php/ article/2462
Search CBS article for "Bad Company of Barack" click the link Opinion.
Posted by JACK3213 at 01:16 PM : Apr 17, 2008"
The pope is too old to protect himself from Bush hugs. We knew Bush is a coward.
1 ATTEND A CHURCH AND A COUPLE GAY PEOPLE ATTEND THE CHURCH,SO THEREFORE I SUPPORT GAYISM?
I ATTEND A COUNTRY CLUB AND THEIR ARE INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE STOLEN MONIES FROM INVESTORS, SINCE I ATTEND THE SAME COUNTRY CLUB - I TOO MUST BE A THIEF?
I WORK FOR A COMPANY WHO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST HIRING PEOPLE OF COLOR, BECAUSE I WORK FOR THAT COMPANY, I DISCRIMINATE AGAINST THEM AS WELL?
I SIT ON A BOARD OF 30 PEOPLE AND ONE OF THEM SAY "AMERICA CAN GO TO HELL" IF I STAY ON THAT BOARD, I SUPPORT THAT INDIVIDUALS IDEA''S ABOUTM AMERICA?
SOMEONE HELP ME DEFINE WHAT THE HELL IS GUILT BY ASSOCIATION, BECAUSE ALL AMERICANS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH IDIOTS.
Now that the debate is over, two-faced Senator Obama is whining. If things don''''t go his way he whines about it. We need a grown up as President. Vote for Senator Clinton!
He forgot to include the millions of dollars in sales of Kool-Aid
/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.htmln
You Rural Gun Toting, Clinging to your Faith People must Go out and Vote for Hillary Clinton...Please
You Low Lifes are the Biggest Social Joke on the Planet !!
Just Scared as He!! of a Afro American Male whose Winning...Scared To Death !!
Bill Clinton,in 1991 was a Bitter, Self Hating, White Racist & White Elitist, when he was running for the Oval Office..Huh
Bill and Hillary are Filthy Rich Elitist with all that Arab Money, they have Now..Huh
As the rumination continues over Barack Obama''''s comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.
Bill Clinton: "The reason (George H. W. Bush''''s)Tactic works so well now is that you have (All these Economically Insecure White People) who are Scared To Death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.
A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:
Bill Clinton: 1991 "You know, he [Bush Sr.] wants to Divide US Over RACE. I''''m from the South. I understand this.
When their economic policies fail, when the country''''s coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the (Most Economically Insecure White Men) and Scare the Living Daylights out of them !!
Bill Clinton,in 1991 was a Bitter, Self Hating, White Racist & White Elitist, when he was running for the Oval Office..Huh
Bill and Hillary are Filthy Rich Elitist with all that Arab Money, they have Now..Huh
As the rumination continues over Barack Obama''s comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.
Bill Clinton: "The reason (George H. W. Bush''s)Tactic works so well now is that you have (All these Economically Insecure White People) who are Scared To Death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.
A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:
Bill Clinton: 1991 "You know, he [Bush Sr.] wants to Divide US Over RACE. I''m from the South. I understand this.
When their economic policies fail, when the country''s coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the (Most Economically Insecure White Men) and Scare the Living Daylights out of them !!
for example, his real estate dealings with Rezko
or other buddies of his, such as Jeremiah Wright or the Weathermen, or maybe Nation of Islam President Louis Farrakhan.
Posted by jack3213 at 07:20 AM
Cool it with the caps-lock. We''re not blind. Secondly, in order to finish this thing in Iraq succesfully, we have to make a more measured attempt to get the H ell out of there! The problem with those of you who support the current admin. is that you assume that the majority of this country is stuck on stupid! You don''t think we see how in Iraq, the goal post keeps moving farther and farther away. First let''s go get Saddam! Got ''em. WMD''s are there...let''s get ''em! Oops...there''s nothing there. Help form an Iraqi govnmt! Done. yet after all of this you still have the audacity to expect more sacrifice from our bravest, and for what? What''s the goal now? A self sustaining Iraq? What the H ell does that mean? What good could possibly come from us policing their civil war? Tone down your imappsioned pleas to avoid surrender, and get with reality. We have a moral obligation to help rebuild, but not settle their religous disputes. Tell me...what is victory? And how many more of our bravest are worth trying to accomplish it? We have probably lost more soldiers to this debacle tahn we would have lost had we been attacked again. It''s just basic cost analysis, as heartless and cruel as that may be, yet it may be the only way to get the message across to the likes of you.
Posted by dante805 at 07:55 AM : Apr 17, 2008"
If he had wanted to make money off his Havard education he certainly took the hard route to do it. As the President of the Harvard Law Review, Obama could have taken any job at any law firm in the country and written his own check. If he really was only interested in getting rich he could have done so very easily. Instead, he took a job working for a small law firm doing community work, not a very lucrative career choice.
Posted by robrob791 at 09:54 AM : Apr 17, 2008"
The caps lock doesn''t make your post any LOUDER, it just makes it look like you really don''t have a point so you are trying to IMPRESS everyone with your ability to post in caps.
If you had bothered to read the article you might have noted that they used the book money to pay off their student loans. Most people who go to college rack up enormous debt that takes years to pay off, you''d know that if you had a student loan but then you''d have to have gone to college to have one of those.
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