Enough With The Millionaires In Congress Already! Just Stop Voting For Them

Word from Capitol Hill is that multimillionaire plutocrat John Kerry (D-MA) is the weakest link among Democrats on the SuperCommittee-- not the strongest group of warriors for the middle class to begin with-- in terms of caving in to the Republicans and their 1%-er priorities. Why should that be a surprise? Kerry is one of them, not one of us. Sure, sometimes-- often in fact-- he takes decent, moderate positions against torture, against corporate wars, for environmental safeguards, etc. But scratch the surface and John Kerry is and will always be one of the richest men to ever sit in the U.S. Senate. And, at his core, he represents his class, not the middle class. He's part of the 1%-- the .001%-- not the 99%. Can we just stop sending these kinds of people to Congress? It muddies the waters between Republicans-- a party 100% dedicated to the interests of the 1%-- and the Democrats, a conflicted mess that barely stands for anything any longer.

Yesterday OpenSecrets released a report showing that almost half the Members of Congress, 47% (249 current Members) are millionaires. That, literally, makes then members of the 1%. And it goes a long way towards explaining why the country is so geared towards the interests of the 1% at the expense-- often devastatingly so-- of the 99%.

"The vast majority of members of Congress are quite comfortable, financially, while many of their own constituents suffer from economic hardships," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

"It's no surprise that so many people grumble about lawmakers being out-of-touch," Krumholz continued. "Few Americans enjoy the same financial cushion maintained by most members of Congress-- or the same access to market-altering information that could yield personal financial gains."

On the whole, elected officials in the country's upper chamber enjoy cushier bank accounts and portfolios than their counterparts in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2010, the year of the most recently released financial data, the estimated median net worth of a current U.S. senator stood at an average of $2.56 million, according to the Center's research.

Despite the global economic meltdown in 2008 and sluggish recovery, that's up about 7.6 percent from an estimated median net worth of about $2.38 million in 2009, according to the Center's analysis. And it's up about 13 percent from a median estimated net worth of $2.27 million in 2008.

Economic well-being knows no partisan loyalty.

Fully 36 Senate Democrats and 30 Senate Republicans reported an average net worth in excess of $1 million in 2010, according to the Center's analysis. The same was true of 110 House Republicans and 73 House Democrats.

The median estimated net worth among Senate Republicans was $2.43 million, and the median net worth among members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate was $2.58 million, by the Center's tally.

Meanwhile, in the House, the median estimated net worth of a GOP House member was $834,250 in 2010, according to the Center's research, compared to a median net worth of $635,500 among House Democrats.

The median estimated net worth among House members, overall, stood at $756,765 in 2010. That's up about 17 percent compared to the median net worth of $645,500 among House members in 2008, but down about 1 percent compared to 2009, when House members posted a median estimated net worth of $765,010, according to the Center's analysis.

...Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) ranks as the wealthiest member of the 112th Congress, according to the Center's analysis of 2010 financial disclosures. Issa's minimum estimated net worth in 2010 was $195 million, while his maximum estimated net worth was more than $700 million. That gives Issa an average net worth of $448 million.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) ranks as the wealthiest House Democrat. Polis, who has spent about $7 million of his own money on his campaigns since 2007, has an average estimated net worth of $143 million.

That's not good enough to rank him as the No. 2 wealthiest member of Congress though. In fact, it only ranks him as No. 5 wealthiest current lawmaker.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) all rank higher.

...The most popular company in which members of Congress were invested in 2010 was General Electric, a company that spent more than $39 million on federal lobbying that year and ranked as the No. 3 top spender on lobbying.

Seventy-five different current members of Congress held stock in GE in 2010, according to the Center's research. Collectively, these holdings were worth at least $3.6 million.

Procter & Gamble and Bank of America ranked No. 2 and No. 3 behind General Electric in terms of the most popular investments, with 62 lawmakers and 57 lawmakers, respectively, holding stocks in each of those companies, according to the Center's analysis.

And, as we've pointed out before, Boehner stuck Michigan plutocrat, Fred Upton, heir to the Whirlpool fortune-- one of the worst job outsourcers in America-- on the SuperCommittee to protect the interests of the 1%, no matter what kind of compromise anyone tries to work out. An extreme right-wing propagandist, columnist Matthew Vadum articulated the 1%-er's view of this democracy thing they all hate so intensely. Explaining the Republican Party jihad against voting rights rather bluntly, Vadum wrote that registering the poor to vote is un-American and “like handing out burglary tools to criminals... It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country-- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote... Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor. It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money. It’s about raw so-called social justice. It’s about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.”

These are battles that never go away, because the greed and selfishness of the rich never go away. The history of this country has seen progressives win over and over again, only to see the self entitled "owner" class reigniting them whenever they have the opportunity. It's time to strengthen the ranks of blue color progressives with new members like John Waltz, Ken Aden, Eric Griego, Joe Miklosi, Chris Donovan, Nick Ruiz and the rest of the Blue America team. These aren't people who are going to betray their friends and families. They are like us because they are us.