Rick Santorum, Member of the 1 Percent
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In his appeal to blue-collar voters, Rick Santorum has said that he is “the grandson of a coal miner who grew up in public housing in a steel town in western Pennsylvania.”
Unlike most coal miners, though, Santorum is pretty rich — so wealthy that he qualifies for membership in the “1 percent” club, the top income earners in the country who are so maligned by the “Occupy” movement.
Tax returns released by Santorum last night show that between 2007 and 2010, the former Pennsylvania senator took home hundreds of thousands of dollars from his work as a consultant and commentator. In 2009, he made $1.1 million, and in 2010, he took home $923,000, in addition to previous years in which he earned more than a half-million dollars. And he drove a German-made luxury car one year.
Blue-collar voters in Michigan, the latest state where Santorum is trying to upset Mitt Romney, might be surprised to learn how rich Santorum is after seeing him on the stump in scrappy, one-man campaign fashion. But insulating Santorum from the charge of being too out of touch with those voters is Romney and his vast mega-million fortune that drew so much attention earlier in the primary season.
Even still, GOP primary voters are less concerned with personal wealth than Democratic primary voters might be, said Michael Heaney, a politics professor at the University of Michigan who has followed the Republican race into his state closely.
“Democrats are more likely to see people who are wealthy as being — they’ve done something wrong, cheated the system,” Heaney said. “Whereas conservatives are more likely to say this is a person that succeeded. This is a person who’s the American success story.”
Santorum set up a company called Excelsior LLC that acted as a mechanism to pay him for consulting fees. He reported being paid $820,000 from the firm on his 2009 tax returns and a half-million dollars from it on his 2010 forms. He has also been paid thousands of dollars by energy, pro-religion and lobbying firms.
The returns also show that Santorum drove an Audi, made in Germany, in 2008 as part of his consulting work.
The IRS reported last year that in 2009, Americans who made $344,000 a year qualified to be in the elite 1 percent echelon, a threshold for which Santorum qualifies easily. The average income among 1-percenters was $960,000.
“I went out after having served in the Senate and had to go out and make money and hopefully with the hope of trying to be able to build some assets,” Santorum said Wednesday night. “It turned out that most of the assets I ended up building was paying down my mortgage on a house that went down in value.”
Voters shouldn’t be shocked, Heaney said, because the nature of the modern political process rewards top-tier candidates with disproportionate pay who can take advantage of elite circles of influence.
“They’re going to be wealthy people,” he said. “That’s the way the system works now.”
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That’s OK Rick – you make a lot less money than the Obamas, Clinton’s’ Kennedy’s, Kerry’s – and I am member of the 57 % – the ones that pay taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: jamescbuilder | February 16, 2012, 2:14 pm 2:14 pm
One percenter, as is Obama, Clinton, Soros, Emanuel, Larry Summers, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, etc.
Posted by: Craig Fox | February 16, 2012, 2:37 pm 2:37 pm
Goodbye Rick. Americans will NOT vote to put the Pope in charge of the White House!
Posted by: thomas mc | February 16, 2012, 2:48 pm 2:48 pm
“One percenter, as is Obama, Clinton, Soros, Emanuel, Larry Summers, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, etc.”—————————There’s nothing wrong with being a 1%er , especially if you are one of them who want’s the upper tax rate increased for ALL rich people fairly . Obama , Soros , Buffet et al are NOT like conservatives in any way , particularly as regards raising tax rates on themselves , aka the top earners . Obama and friends push in Congress every day for increasing their own rates ( Obama and the Dems pushing to let the Bush tax cuts end is one cogent example of this ) while the conservatives fight such increases tooth and nail with a vengeance . That someone would attempt in the most facetious and disingenuous way to equate the two would be completely laughable if it wasn’t so stupid and hateful in context to boot. Another perfect example of conservative ethics in action , or more correctly the complete and utter lack of same.
Posted by: davem | February 16, 2012, 3:33 pm 3:33 pm
Obama and friends (like Buffet) push everday increasing for their own tax rates – really – ever heard of Berkshire Hathaway (Buffet Co.) – for – according to their own 2010 Annual Report they have fighting the IRS and reveal a potential liability of approximately $1 BILLION in taxes owed. Maybe they have it wrong and Warren wants to pay $2 Billion and that it why he is fighting the IRS – get a life.
Posted by: jamescbuilder | February 16, 2012, 3:59 pm 3:59 pm
“That’s OK Rick – you make a lot less money than the Obamas “——————-Well 2 people ( i.e. a couple , married ) do tend to earn more income than one person alone in most similar cases . Another wily conservative that has got their “thinking cap” ( aka tin foil hat ) on plenty tight !
Posted by: verdant_varlet | February 16, 2012, 4:10 pm 4:10 pm
Poor James , never learned what the word “potential ” meant whilst in grade school .
Posted by: davem | February 16, 2012, 4:11 pm 4:11 pm
Hello ABC,
it appears you are back on the road to journalistic excellence with your reporting on the background of the 2012 Presidential candidates; we missed you in 2008.
We might be able to forgive your negligence during the 2008 election cycle, provided that you provide a balanced, objective view of ALL of the candidates this year. For the record, an incumbent is a candidate.
To get a good start down the road to journalistic excellence, we would expect to see a well sourced deep-dive (this means many objective sources, rather than a single interview inside the White House) into the income, affiliations, academic record, and criminal history of one Barack Hussein Obama.
In the interim, there is a ray of hope that journalism in broadcast news is not dead.
All the best,
A potential return viewer
Posted by: Dugway | February 17, 2012, 8:06 am 8:06 am
Dear ABC,
It appears you might be looking down the road towards a return to journalistic excellence vis-avis the Presidential Candidates. We missed you in the 2008 campaign.
To demonstrate your intentions further, I believe your viewers would like to see a full-deep dive into the criminal history, academic record, full publishing history (including academic papers), personal affiliations, drug-use history, and pre-presidential employment history of one Barack Hussein Obama.
You might also want to whack George Stephanopoolous on the nose for his setup of Romney on the contraception topic during the recent debate. That was quite the spectacle, and was clearly tied to the admin’s new ‘rule’ for free condoms.
Anyhow, we will be closely hopefully monitoring your reporting for signs of objectivity and balance, and cheering you on as you move from attempting to influencing outcomes, and back to the role of the media as envisioned by the founders of ths fine nation.
All the best,
A Potential return viewer
Posted by: Dugway | February 17, 2012, 8:14 am 8:14 am
Dear Michigan,
Dont give into Santorum. He’s a fork-tongued greaseball who was coughed up and spit out of PA. His past is filled with controversy and intellect and decency do not abide in him. Think this one out before heading out to vote. Your better than this, Michigan.
Posted by: Concerned voter | February 17, 2012, 11:35 am 11:35 am
I think “Democrats are more likely to see people who are wealthy as being — they’ve done something wrong, cheated the system,” Heaney said” should really be “Democrats are more likely to see REPUBLICAN people who are wealthy as being — they’ve done something wrong, cheated the system,” Heaney said”. Obviously democrats have no problem with rich Obama, rich Pelosi, rich Reid, rich Kerry, rich Soros, etc. And the commenter who says that it’s ok for democrats to be rich because they support a higher tax rate obviously has no idea that 1) the rich already pay most of the taxes and 2) everyone, including rich democrats, are allowed to voluntarily contribute as much to pay down the debt as they wish to do. There’s even a gov’t website set up to accept these voluntary contributions.
A rich person saying “I wish the government would force me to pay more taxes” would be like me saying “I wish the government would force me to give more to charity”. If you want to do that, you should just do it, whether gov’t forces you to do it or not.
I am breathlessly awaiting the headline “Barack Obama, a member of the 1 Percent”
Posted by: Jane Parker | February 17, 2012, 6:39 pm 6:39 pm
All trace holidays to March 8!!!
Posted by: frylnrind | March 9, 2012, 10:42 pm 10:42 pm