Posted on 06/23/2014 9:57:36 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
At a White House summit for working families Monday, Vice PresidentJoseph R. Biden tried to relate to the audience by calling himself “the poorest man in Congress.”
While acknowledging that he was wearing “a mildly expensive suit,” Mr. Biden said he’s not as wealthy as most of his peers in Washington.
“I don’t own a single stock or bond,” Mr. Biden said to laughter. “I have no savings accounts. But I got a great pension and I got a good salary.”
Mr. Biden and wife Jill reported $407,009 in adjusted gross income in 2013, including $230,700 for his salary as vice president. They also have been receiving $2,200 a month in rent from the Secret Service for its use of a small building on their property in Delaware.
But the vice president’s reported net worth of less than $800,000 is less than many of his colleagues in Congress, where he serves as president of the Senate.
Mr. Biden acknowledged that he has been “very, very fortunate” in his career. And although he didn’t propose any new federal policies to help working families Monday, he called for employers to be more flexible in granting leave.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Doesn’t that just mean he’s really bad at handling money and/or wasn’t very good at whatever he did before becoming a politician?
IQ or money?
Bit of deflection going on here.
He sufferers from Poverty of Intellect.
I’m sure Plugs has a honey hole somewhere don’t be fooled!
If Biden meant “ the poorest EXCUSE of a Man,” B. Hussein wins.
Since Biden is not in Congress, but considers himself to be “the poorest man in Congress’ it sounds was if Biden took a cut in pay to become Hussein’s Veep.
Liberals love a good pity party. It’s what they live for...
He and his wife have an annual income of over $400k, his expenses are mostly paid for by the taxpayer, and he has the gall to claim poverty?
And we know that he gives NOTHING to charity.
It just means he can sell America to the lowest bidder. There is a race to do that these days... giving it for free.
Maybe but he has plenty of Natural Gas.
There is no damned thing these days as an Ascetic Politician...
But we need them, badly...
Biden is no where near an Ascetic
Well, he is one of the poorest excuses for a human being I’ve ever seen.
Biden's adjusted income is over $230,000 which means he's probably pulling in over three hundred grand a year. And for that he's only worth $800,000? I suspect the man has a problem with delaying gratification... he should be living in Detroit - singing the blues.
In Biden’s favor on this, that level of idiocy is usually worth millions per year in TV contracts, so if he’s making less, he’s comparatively poor.
These disgusting POS politicians complaining about how poor they are. People out here in America (far and away from the District of Criminals) are getting our asses handed to us due to bad policy, over regulation, high taxation and a booming welfare state. The economy sucks, things we need daily have inflated prices, the job market is piss poor and health insurance is a fantastic mess now thanks to “them”.
Yet they can complain from on high how “poor” they are.
Just sick.
Moral bankruptcy. Very common in D.C.
Heard that old Joe was a cheapo with his charitable contributions—or lack thereof.
Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.
Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope...
No hurricane could fill a lake as quickly as those who are now shedding tears for the Bidens and Clintons. It’s a horrible sight, too ghastly to photograph. Bob
Maybe R. Hunter can give him an allowance.
Biden son’s appointment to Ukraine gas company raises no conflict of interest, White House says
R. Hunter Biden, a lawyer and a partner in an investment firm, was recently named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a private company that has drilled for natural gas in Ukraine since 2002.
R. Hunter Biden, pictured with his father Vice President Joe Biden in 2010, was recently named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a private company that has drilled for natural gas in Ukraine since 2002.Nick Wass/ASSOCIATED PRESSR. Hunter Biden, pictured with his father Vice President Joe Biden in 2010, was recently named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a private company that has drilled for natural gas in Ukraine since 2002.
The White House on Tuesday brushed aside questions about whether the involvement of Vice President Joe Biden’s son in a Ukrainian natural gas company raised ethical issues at a time when the administration is promoting energy diversity in the country.
R. Hunter Biden, a lawyer and a partner in an investment firm, was recently named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a private company that has drilled for natural gas in Ukraine since 2002.
In a statement on Burisma’s website, Hunter Biden said he would help the company with “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion,” and other issues.
Natural gas has been a central issue in recent tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine depends on Russia for most of its natural gas, and has accused Moscow of hiking natural gas prices as punishment for moving closer to the European Union.
In April, the vice president traveled to Kiev and discussed how the United States could help provide technical expertise for expanding domestic production of natural gas.
Asked by a reporter whether Hunter Biden’s appointment to the company presented a conflict, White House spokesman Jay Carney said it did not.
“Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens, and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the vice president or president,” Carney said during a briefing.
Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Vice President Biden, said he “does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company.”
The head of a watchdog group on government ethics said there was no inherent conflict in Biden’s job.
“It can’t be that because your dad is the vice president, you can’t do anything,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Financial conflict of interest laws and regulations for government officials do not apply to the president and vice president, explained Richard Painter, who was chief ethics lawyer for former Republican President George W. Bush from 2005 until 2007.
Even if they did apply, the laws do not extend to the financial interests of officials’ grown children, he said.
“It’s very clear the statute does not cover this, even if the statute applied to the vice president,” said Painter, now at the University of Minnesota Law School.
Regulations do require government officials to recuse themselves on decisions where their family members are a party, or representing a party, he said.
In any case, Painter said he does not believe that Biden, who plays a central foreign policy role at the White House, should step back from working on issues affecting energy in Ukraine for appearance’s sake.
But it would have been preferable for the vice president had his son avoided the matter altogether, or decided to step down, Painter said.
“If I had been the lawyer for the vice president, I would have said, ‘Try to get your son to get off that board,’” Painter said.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.