Friday’s Mini-Report

April 4, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The Clintons’ tax returns were released this afternoon: “Bill and Hillary Clinton earned a combined $109 million between 2000 and 2007, with the former president and first lady parlaying their White House years into hefty publishing paydays, and with his oratorical gifts bringing in more than $51 million from paid speaking engagements. The figures came with the release this afternoon of the Clintons’ joint tax returns, a move Sen. Clinton made after promising during a televised presidential debate to comply with requests from journalists and her Democratic rivals to share details of her family’s financial dealings. The returns reveal how the Clintons turned global fame into a successful commercial brand, particularly through the former president’s speaking fees. The two also collected more than $30 million from book deals, the returns show.”

* For years, policy experts have feared that terrorists would go to Iraq, learn deadly skills, and then take those lessons elsewhere to commit more acts of violence. We’re starting to see these fears come to reality.

* And embarrassed Mark Penn apologized this afternoon for his work on the Colombian trade deal: “[A] Clinton adviser said the candidate was not happy to learn about the meeting, and Penn issued a statement expressing regrets. ‘The meeting was an error in judgment that will not be repeated and I am sorry for it,’ Penn said in a written statement. ‘The senator’s well-known opposition to this trade deal is clear and was not discussed.'”

* John McCain delivered a speech on Dr. King in Memphis today. He heard a lot of boos.

* The re-vote in Michigan was dead, but now it’s really dead: “Michigan Democrats will not to go to the polls again to choose a presidential nominee, even though the national party has refused to recognize the results of their vote in January, the party announced Friday. ‘We have concluded that it is not practical to conduct such a primary or caucus,’ the state party’s executive committee said in a written statement.”

* On the other hand: “After meeting with Florida Democratic leaders this week, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean met with Michigan party leaders Friday, saying again he is ‘committed’ to find a way to seat the two states’ delegates at this summer’s convention.”

* A painful, nauseating story that needs to be read: “It was an early January morning in 2008 when 42-year-old Lisa Smith [a pseudonym], a paramedic for a defense contractor in southern Iraq, woke up to find her entire room shaking. The shipping container that served as her living quarters was reverberating from nearby rocket attacks, and she was jolted awake to discover an awful reality. ‘Right then my whole life was turned upside down,’ she says. What follows is the story she told me in a lengthy, painful on-the-record interview, conducted in a lawyer’s office in Houston, Texas, while she was back from Iraq on a brief leave.”

* If McCain’s too busy running for president to co-sponsor the revised GI Bill, how is that Clinton and Obama found time to sign on?

* Nice chart on the McCain-lobbyist connection.

* Paul Weyrich, the religious right pioneer, endorsed Mitt Romney for president, but is working to ensure that he’s not vice president. Odd.

* House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has some questions for Attorney General Michael Mukasey about that mysterious 9/11 phone call.

* No, we can’t see the new NIE on Iraq.

* Remember when O’Reilly encouraged everyone to “relax on all this gay stuff”? He needs to take his own advice.

* And finally, Glenn Beck argued last night that the extinction of polar bears as a result of global warming isn’t such a bad thing, because, he explained, “they eat people.” Remember, CNN — the network that the right considers insufficiently conservative — pays this guy quite a bit of money.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Daaammmm. Just Words is worth a lot of money! I see why HRC is fighting to the death to be able to go around getting paid for Just Words after she’s done being Preznit!

  • “Nice chart on the McCain-lobbyist connection.”

    We need a similar chart to illustrate the Clinton-lobbyist connections.

  • “Bill and Hillary Clinton earned a combined $109 million between 2000 and 2007…”

    Coincidentally, Hillary announced today that, if elected, she would appoint a “poverty czar”.

    I was just kidding about the “coincidentally” part.

  • From page 30 of their 2003 tax returns…

    They deducted a combined $147,440 for “cleaning and maintenance” for their 2 home offices (combined 1029 sq ft)

  • the couple paid more than $33 million in federal taxes during that 8-year period and donated more than $10 million to various charities.

  • Maybe General Lute can become Hillary’s “poverty czar” since he’s done such a bang up job as “Iraqi War Czar”. Has anyone heard anything from him in a year or more? Has he even been seen?

    !09 Million? In 7 years?? Wow, I wanna be ex-President.

    Malcolm keep posting the fun and interesting things you find in there.

    Oh, and Mr Benen? I beg to differ with you about Aaron being one of the 6. Remember the end of season 2, or one of them anyway. Jack was getting off a plane and he walked over to a fence on the runway, and Kate and Sawyer got out of the pickup? Couldn’t Sawyer be the 6th? Or was that one of those parallel universe thangies?

  • A reasonable news analysis would compare the Clintons book deals and speaking fees with those of other former presidents and first ladies (adjusted for inflation).

    If maintenance includes redecoration, one could easily spend $147,440. All it would take is some antique furniture. Heavy duty office equipment would eat up much of that amount. Don’t forget that Cheney made his house into a secure compound, in contrast, at taxpayer expense. Is the point that this was an improper deduction or that someone shouldn’t spend that much on their home office? Should the home office be furnished with stuff from Costco while the rest of the house is upscale? Is this more of the idea that John Edwards should live in a shack if he’s going to talk about poverty?

    I said there would just be gratuitous snipes if they released their returns.

  • “I said there would just be gratuitous snipes if they released their returns.”

    I’m not sure anyone is being gratuitous with it, but it is fair to ask why you would claim $147,440 worth of redecorating as “Cleaning and Maintenance” when its perfectly acceptable to claim the redecoration of a home office (with whatever you want) as a one time business expense. Unless the “Cleaning and Maintenence” was a monthly expense that just happened to clean the whole house and included high end “Cleaning and Maintenance” issues such as sweeping for bugs.

    but then again Mary who you are you to question anyone about being gratuitous?

  • A painful, nauseating story that needs to be read: “It was an early January morning in 2008 when 42-year-old Lisa Smith [a pseudonym], a paramedic for a defense contractor in southern Iraq, woke up to find her entire room shaking. The shipping container that served as her living quarters was reverberating from nearby rocket attacks, and she was jolted awake to discover an awful reality. ‘Right then my whole life was turned upside down,’ she says. What follows is the story she told me in a lengthy, painful on-the-record interview, conducted in a lawyer’s office in Houston, Texas, while she was back from Iraq on a brief leave.”

    Yep, there really is an Imperial Waffen SS – they’re not in the official armed forces, just as the original Waffen SS was a “private army.”

  • This should add insult to injury to all the Ohio businesses that got stiffed by the Clinton campaign.

  • The Obamas gave $60,307 to charity. The largest gift was $22,500 to Trinity United Church of Christ, the South Side congregation they have long attended. Another $13,107 went to the Congressional Black Caucus, with $15,000 directed to CARE, an international aid organization that fights hunger, poverty and disease in the third world. They also gave $5,000 to the Muntu Dance Theater, a south side troupe that performs contemporary and ancient African dances.
    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-070416obama-tax,0,445005.story

    Anybody see a pattern here?

  • Nell: what, that the Obamas, who have somewhat more limited resources than the Clintons, tend to favor charities in their community? A pattern, maybe, but a nefarious one? Hardly.

    Maintenance of a home office in a multimillion dollar home could easily run $150k if, for instance, it needed major structural or roofing repairs. Deducting $150k against $20m income doesn’t seem that outrageous. And in the 8 years the Clintons’ released returns cover, they paid $33m in federal taxes on $109m income, or just over 30%. That’s hard to argue with, really. With their income levels they could easily have gotten that down to 15% or less, so my takeaway is that they are largely playing by the rules and paying their dues.

    Of course, zealots on either side are free to arm-wave and hyperbolize.

  • @ brooks….

    I agree, but if that were the case, wouldn’t that be listed on line 18 (repairs and maintenance) on page 26 of the 2003 return? it isn’t, it’s listed under “other expenses”.

  • and as far as whether it is or is not a legit expense…

    I notice that in the following years, they claimed nothing under cleaning and maint.

  • One more thing… in the 2000 return (while Bill was still prez), hillary shows an income of 130,518 from S-corp, estate and trust. (page 6 line 12)

    The explanation should be shown under schedule K1, but that’s missing from the file that was posted.

    Does anyone remember if she was working during that time?

  • Hey Obamabots, get a life! Let’s see, go through seven years of tax returns and pick out some office maintenance line. Will you go through Obama’s returns like that? Of course you won’t. Man, I have to wonder if Obama is as petty and nasty as his supporters.

  • One more thing….

    2006 return, page 23 line 1A…

    $6,145,000 (39.37% of total) earned from investments outside the United States.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for them making money. I happy for anyone who is successfule (and boy are they successful)…

    But.. if you’re running a campaign largely based on the idea of punishing people who move jobs and money outside the US, you’re going to have a problem when over 39% of your own income comes from foreign investments.

    But… it was listed under “canada and various”, so I guess there’s a chance that people won’t ask exactly who “various” is.

  • I’m not the only one to notice, but I have to add my own dismay at your decision not to include the Clintons’ $10 million donations to charity and $30 million in taxes paid in the snark fest about their earnings. Also, your refusal to include earnings from other past presidents (I seem to recall that George Bush the elder, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon parlayed their service into big dollars) makes the whole piece a cheap shot at Senator Clinton. Tacky and unworthy of so fine a site as The Carpetbagger Report.

  • @ Johnny…

    First…yes, I did go through Obama’s return with the same eye. I did that some time ago, when Obama released his. In fact, I talked about them in mid-march

    Second… the reason we are going through this so much is that fact that it doesn’t pass the smell test.

    You put off releasing these as long as possible, then dump them on “take out the trash day”, on the 40th ann of MLK’s death of all times.

    Besides…if you will remember, Bill was over-deducting the “value” of his used underwear years ago, you had to expect that we would be looking for more creative accounting 🙂

  • @18,
    Bill did earn a chunk of change speaking in Canada. As for various? ???????

    @19,
    If they had released this information early in the campaign then maybe they wouldn’t have taken all those sniper shots like Hils “did” in Tuzla.

  • the couple paid more than $33 million in federal taxes during that 8-year period and donated more than $10 million to various charities. — Linda, @6, and several others, later on.

    Yes, I noticed it too, since the “over 10 mil” to charities is pretty much a “tithe” — about as much as I’d expect, since 10% of our income is what my husband and I budget for charities also. But… did it strike anyone else as funny that they spent as much on Mark Penn as they did on all their other charities combined?

    And those of you who complain about the returns being dumped on a Friday… When better? When else would people like Malcolm get the time to dig, if not on a weekend?

    Malcolm, since you said (@20) that you’d gone through Obamas’ returns… Can you confirm — or refute — the rumour I heard, that the Obamas spend 25% of their income on charities?

  • @ Libra (22)

    – the Obama’s didn’t come anywhere near to 25% charity (at least according to their returns)

    In fact, when it comes to declared deductions, their contributions are pretty low (I have more last year myself than they did between 2000 and 2004.

    Once he started making real money, he gave more, but still not as much (% wise) as the clintons….

    2000 – $2350 off $240,726 income = 0.98%
    2001 – $1470 off $275,123 income = 0.53%
    2002 – $1050 off $260,824 income = 0.40%
    2003 – $3400 off $238,327 income = 1.43%
    2004 – $2500 off $207,647 income = 1.20%
    2005 – $77,315 off $1,670,995 income = 4.63%
    2006 – $60,307 off $983,826 income = 6.15%

  • libra (22): Obama’s charitable donations were very small until 2005.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0704250022apr25,0,2994918.story

    But that is not always the whole story. You may remember that Christine Delay was paid rather handsomely for collecting the names of congressmen’s favorite charities. Several were investigated for basically using charities to launder money. What a bargain. You get a tax discount. The charity doesn’t have to explain why they got the money, and they have great latitude on what tthey use it for. About $5 million from Clinton went to the Clinton Foundation. Among the payments from the charity was $100,000 to a charity connected to the guy that helped her make a surprising amount of money a few years ago on cattle futures.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022601542.html

    And of course John McCain has a charity, too. He is virtually the only person who gives to his charity, and used it to give money to the schools where his children were studying, but only while they were in school.

    http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002519

  • Can it actually be that everyone’s so wound up over some tax returns that they’re not even noticing the issue related to Conyers and Mukasey? Wake up, people, before this becomes another item lost in the weekly onslaught of Friday Night Garbage Data-Dumps. What we may well be looking at here is another piece of the puzzle that finally “outs” the Bu$h administration’s goal to foment war-for-profit by intentionally putting American civilians in harm’s way….

  • @ Danp 24

    One of the things that bothered me about Obama’s returns is that he generally didn’t itemize his caritable deductions.

    He did in in 2005, but I personally think that this was an attempt to minimize the damage from his connection to his church.

    For 2005, the breakdown was…

    Misc $11,315 = 14.63% of total
    Il reading council $25,000 = 32.34% of total
    Rochelle Lee Fund $20,000 = 25.87% of total
    Trinity UCoC $5000 = 6.47% of total
    Care $16,000 = 20.69% of total.

    Now, it may be that since this was the first time his total donations totaled such a high amount $77k, he was itemizing them so that he could show the IRS that they were legit, but all other years, they’re just lised as “misc organized charities”.

    So, for example, it’s possible that all of the $60,307 he donated in 2006 could have gone to the crazy church. Without it listed specifically, who’s to know?

  • If maintenance includes redecoration, one could easily spend $147,440.

    Definitely not. Office furniture are assets, not expenses. They’d have to be depreciated over 7 years. Of course, if they used a section 179 deduction, they could claim the expense all in one year, but it’d still be a depreciation expense and not cleaning and maintenance. Assuming they aren’t lying “Cleaning and Maintenance” really should be cleaning and maintenance, and not any assets worth more than $100 or so. There are no antiques here.

    Sure, lawyers have advantages as blog authors, but us CPA’s have some expertise too.

    (Well that was weird, I posted a whole comment, but it only included the first line.)

  • malcom, you’re right about some unusual choices of line numbers, but I have a *lot* of experience with corporate taxes (not a CPA, I hire them though), and I can’t tell you how many times highly qualified and bright people have managed to get something like that wrong. One year my company managed to switch our “office supplies” and “communications” lines, putting our entire cell phone and internet expenses in the category usually used for pens and paper clips.

    I’m not saying that’s what’s up with the placement of 150k on cleaning and maintenance, but it’s such a small dollar figure (percentage-wise) that I don’t believe for a second that either the Clintons or their CPA were trying to get away with something here. I’d bet substantial sums that it’s either sensible when you know the details, or an honest mistake that has no significant bearing on taxes paid.

    Also, I think you have your argument backwards with regards to income from overseas. That’s money flowing *into* the US, *from* overseas, pretty much the opposite of the issue with job loss. Now, if they had *spent* 30% of their income overseas, it would be remarkable. But this way it just means they’re doing their part to have a net positive trade balance, which is neutral-to-noble the way I see it.

  • @ Dr Biobrain (30)

    correct me if I’m wrong, but…

    If they have their business set up on the “cash accounting” method (like I have mine) expenses get fully charged at once, (not amortized, there is no A/P or A/R)

  • @ brooks (31)

    Point taken and accepted.

    But I also find it funny that in their returns, you’ll find that just after leaving office, they have a surprising amount of income coming from Canada and Mexico.

    I guess NAFTA did some good afterall 🙂

  • I hate to start to rile folks up further, but did anyone see clips of HRC speaking about MLK today? All that fake, shameless dramatic emotion made me want to puke. After watching her the last couple of months I take back the slack I cut her over the NH tears/no-tears incident. The woman is a completely transparent, bad actor.

  • I signed Weyrich’s petition for fun:

    “White people confuse me. I thought Mitt Romney was the #1 choice of conservatives. But now that he is not spending the big bucks on consultants etc, you folks toss him overboard. Me, I hope McCain picks someone to the right of Attila the Hun like Helen Chenoweth. She is as old as dirt just like McCain. They’d make a great pair!”

  • Beep, that was my take on her, too. It was too overly done…but really lacking emotion. A VERYdifferent Hillary. It didn’t move me even remotely except to say, yeah, whatever.

  • Malcolm and Danp,

    Thank for the percentage breakdown on Obamas’ charitable donations. I guess I’ve been “had”, when my DH told me that I should spend 10% of my “pin money” on charities; it appears that no one — but us and the Clintons — hews to that outmoded principle. But… How was a dumb Polack like me to *know*???

    And, Danp, thanks again for pointing out that not all charities are equal 🙂 Not being in the same league financially as the presidential candidates (ie not having my own foundation), I guess I’ll stick with the Doctors w/o Borders and Unesco for the big ones and things like food pantry, college scholarships for highschool kids and public library on the local level…

  • The $10 million the Clintons gave in charities went to their own charitable foundation, with Bill as President, Hillary as Secretary/Treasurer and Chelsea as Director, along with another Clinton relative.

    Of the $10 million, only a small fraction was given away to others, and the tax returns don’t say where the rest of the money went.

    Here’s the link:

    http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2008/04/04/clinton_charitable_giving_is_to_clinton_charity

  • Wow, so, was McCain booed for voting for or against the holiday? I mean, I’d expect it was mostly Republicans – his target market – listening in.

  • Giving to a charity is something you cannot deduct unless the charity is registered as such for tax purposes. Churches, schools and other organizations register themselves. You can’t just give a bunch of money to a politician or business and claim it as charitable giving for tax purposes.

    It makes sense to me that McCain would give to his kids schools (benefitting all of the kids who attend, not just his own), that Obama would give to his church and to black community organizations (dance troupe), that the Clintons would give small amounts to charities associated with their friends or supporters. This is not wrong unless it is a tit-for-tat payback for some political favor. If you are going to imply that Clinton is somehow buying political favors from other politicians, you cannot just say that something is a former political friend’s charity, but must also show what she received from that person that the donation is supposedly paying for. It is a stretch to imply that Wright’s support for Obama was purchased by Obama’s previous donations to Wright’s church. It is similarly a stretch to say that anything Clinton donates to anyone remotely political must be payback for some unspecified favor Clinton received from them at some unspecified time in the past when that person might have done something Clinton (or her legislation or her other supporters or the dem party in general) might have benefitted from. That’s plainly ridiculous but that is the kind of vague suggestion I am seeing in the comments here.

    There are rules about what charitable family foundations can do with their money. If they pay themselves salaries to administer the foundations, so what? It was their money to begin with. Who else should administer a Clinton foundation besides members of the Clinton family? That way, the Clintons are the ones who decide what the money will be donated to. I would do it exactly the same way and so would most people. Trying to warp that into something nefarious is an example of “anything to win” Obama campaigning, in my opinion.

  • @ mary 42

    I agree with everything you said; except your “anything to win” Obama campaigning.

    Under the circumstances, that’s a stone best left unthrown. The Clinton campaign has re-invented the term in this cycle.

  • On the topic of those who learn terrorism in the chaos that is Iraq. Why don’t we see more terrorism in the states? Can we actually attribute this fact to the current administration, or are we just lucky? I ask this because I want *facts* about what is working and what doesn’t and not propagranda… what do you think?

  • Josef K

    I believe it is the lack of moral support.
    Any extremist wanting to hurt innocent civilians doesn’t find anyone who agrees with him. He is much more likely to find someone ready to calm him down and look for more productive ways to express his unhappiness.

    We still have a country ruled by laws and there are mechanisms by which an individual or better yet a group of individuals can get relief from our elected officials.

    If they do not, they can form an organization to pressure the government and worthy causes can usually find an ear eventually.

    Terror here has been started by groups of three or fewer. More often by two.

    It goes back to the old line “Two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead”
    It gets exponentially worse as you add people. Elsewhere in the world, entire enclaves of oppressed minorities can fester. Reinforcing their misery, affirming each other’s bad ideas and convincing themselves that they have every right to kill blameless people.

    That concept just doesn’t have a very receptive audience here. Those who wish to entertain such thoughts dismiss them reasonably quickly after getting no help from anyone and perhaps even getting alternative suggestions they pursue instead,

    Embracing our Muslim population after 911 rather than herding them off to concentration camps as some conservatives recommended probably prevented domestic terrorism.

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