Mitt Romney is apparently too rich to be president. According to a recent poll that shows a clear win for Obama should the two face off in the general election, wealth is a deciding factor. Several sites have created apps that will show you how long it would take Romney to make your salary. These ‘Romney calculators’ are buzzing up and down Facebook and other social media since the release of his tax returns and earnings ahead of his loss to Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina primary and his wins in the Florida and Nevada contests.
So how rich is too rich to effectively govern? Are better decisions made by those with lighter pocketbooks? As a venture capitalist Romney made some investment decisions that put him in position to take home millions. Romney’s net worth is $250 million. He is a millionaire politician–and he is not alone.
Nancy Peolsi is worth $35.5 million, with her biggest paydays coming from investments. Is she more equipped to govern because she took home less money in a similar field?
A portion of Romney’s now infamous $42 million in income over the last two years has come from public speaking engagements.
Bill Clinton is worth $80 million, with the bulk of his income for 2010 coming from speeches and book revenue. Hillary Clinton is worth just over $20 million, putting the former first family above $100 million.
Why not celebrate that someone has made money in the private sector, proving it can be done? Why not see this as a way of ending Washington corruption? Consider the headlines “Venture capitalist runs on own bank account, raises zero dollars” Imagine the idea that someone could enter the White House without a political debt…
Consider the slogans…
“Mitt Romney–so rich he cannot be bought…Not even by the labor unions” ( insert the PAC you feel would best resonate with voters, and call me Mitt! I have others for you!)
People often speak of Romney’s disconnect from the average person and on this I tend to agree, but not just about Romney–about all millionaire politicians. Make no mistake, in order to even launch an exploratory committee one has to be a millionaire. Running for president has a price tag that most Americans could not even touch.
President Barrack Obama is forced to get by on a net worth of $10.5 Million and somehow he feels your pain? In 2010 the median United States household income was $49,445. Still quite a gap between our leader and the day to day struggles of the average American.
What the media has done very effectively is make us believe that someone who has a bank balance of $10.5 million can better understand you simply because the other guy has more. The dollar figure is inconsequential! It is another stumbling block thrown out to make one party or candidate seem more sympathetic to the plight of the common man.
In my community, the median income is about $20,000 less than the average. Many who work are still forced to utilize government assistance programs to make ends meet. When you make under $50,000 per year, $10 million or $250 millon are closer than the numbers seem. The void might as well be immeasurable.
It’s interesting you should bring this up. I was actually reading that something like 44% of Congress is composed of millionaires while they make up only 1% of the population. I would really like to take the time to study the wealth of candidates before, during, and after they are in office. I know Clinton pulled down a lot of his wealth in the years after his presidency. He gets like $90,000 in speaking fees whenever he does a gig.
Barack Obama probably made a lot of his cash from speaking fees after he was elected to the Senate.