this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
302 points (94.4% liked)

politics

19120 readers
5158 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden earned $619,976 in 2023, according to their joint tax returnreleased by the White House on Monday – the deadline date for Americans to file their taxes.

The White House also released the return for Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, showing that pair made $450,299 last year.

“President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office should be open and honest with the American people,” the White House said in a statement on Monday, “and that the longstanding tradition of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue unbroken.”

That statement could be seen as a dig at former President Donald Trump, who declined to voluntarily release his tax returns while he was president. Six years of Trump’s tax returns, including from his time as president, were released to the public by the House Ways and Means Committee at the end of 2022.

The bulk of the Bidens’ income came from President Biden’s congressionally mandated $400,000 salary, along with pensions. The first lady also earned $85,985 from her position as a teacher at Northern Virginia Community College.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 122 points 7 months ago (28 children)

You know what's disgusting? 85k salary for a teacher. Teachers need more.

[–] formergijoe 34 points 7 months ago

A teacher with a doctorate.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago

Way more than my mom was paid as a teacher. She climbed the ranks for 20 years until retiring relatively recently, and barely broke 70 in all that time.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh boy don’t look at Florida’s teacher salaries then. (Or whatever hell holes are the 2 states lower than us)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Cries in Oklahoma. I'm hearing from other locals that, since we're losing so many teachers, some classes are being combined into gymnasiums with 120 kids to 1 teacher. Fuck Governor Stitt and his goon Ryan Walters.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (25 replies)
[–] silverbax 101 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Now let's compare the numbers to Donald Trump's...oh thats right, he said he would release his nine years ago and never did.

[–] ilinamorato 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

He couldn't even scrape together $200m despite insisting that he's a billionaire. I think we can pretty confidently assume he has hamberder wrappers in his wallet and nothing else.

[–] JustZ 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, he probably got some Adderall prescriptions he stole from Baron.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Because he's a broke ass bitch

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Two more weeks! There are just so many papers. Two more weeks. They'll be perfect tax returns.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 95 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Okay?

The presidential salary is $400,000/yr, which is pretty small compared to a lot of NATO countries. Jill just has to pull in $200k, which is probably pretty doable for people with their background- I'd bet they own a business or two at least, in which case this is still fairly modest in the US. It's an unimaginable amount of money for me and almost anyone I know, but it's really not out of the ordinary (and maybe even pretty low) for someone in an ownership/leadership position in the US.

[–] formergijoe 53 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Here's a full breakdown:

Biden's presidential salary is $400,000. Jill Biden reported earning $85,985 from Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches. The Bidens collected $129,876 in taxable interest, pensions and annuities, Social Security benefits, and IRA distributions − significantly more than in 2022, producing the spike in income. Jill Biden also reported $4,115 in royalties from prior book publications.

From USA Today

Biden does get a pension for his time as Vice President and senator and they both qualify for social security.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Damn, they’re not rich enough to buy a large house in a blue state.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] sartalon 72 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Article says Jill pulls $85k. So the rest is probably investments, which is pretty damn modest, considering their age.

[–] formergijoe 30 points 7 months ago

The Bidens collected $129,876 in taxable interest, pensions and annuities, Social Security benefits, and IRA distributions − significantly more than in 2022, producing the spike in income. Jill Biden also reported $4,115 in royalties from prior book publications.

Sauce: USA Today

[–] JustZ 5 points 7 months ago

Considering the dude has been in the Senate since dinosaurs were on the planet during which time he could partake legally in inside trading and he had access to much of the world's confidential information and a long list of people volunteering to do him favors.

That's Jimmy-Carter-selling-his-peanut-farm modest.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] aluminium 61 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Seems very modest for the most powerful positon on earth

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm of two minds here. I don't think anyone for any reason should be allowed to earn over a half million per year. But also there are people whose positions are far less important who have earnings significantly higher than this.

The carryover effect of an economic system that that has catastrophically imbalanced wealth distribution means that in order for actually qualified people occupying roles that are important, you need to compensate them at a very high rate.

[–] Dozzi92 9 points 7 months ago

I generally agree with you, but half a mil is peanuts and those aren't the people I think we should be eating. I think something in the 5-10m range is where we should be taking 90% of it or something. But yeah, you need to pay leaders enough for the job to be worth doing, because the goodness of one's heart doesn't provide unfortunately.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Rapidcreek 37 points 7 months ago (17 children)

Compare that to what chief executives of corporations make.

load more comments (17 replies)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's actually not a lot for being the president. Tons of CEOs are making like 100x that lol.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

400k of that is just from the Presidential salary. Which is way higher than I recall from when I learned about it in high school (iirc shit was only 100k/year).

[–] JustZ 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah it's been going up. Makes sense. Arguably not enough for how much stress that job is. Of course it comes with a free house and that has a bowling alley in it, and escape hatches for hookers.

[–] Senshi 8 points 7 months ago

The reason politicians should have good salaries is that it should dissuade them from being attracted by bribes or other kinds of corruption. Of course, some peoples' greed knows no bounds.

And frankly, I'd much rather see public servants rake in big money than the 0.1% "businessmen".

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] hark 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The real money from the presidency comes after which is when they get paid millions in speaking fees to take advantage of connections.

[–] isles 7 points 7 months ago

There's a real chance that if he wins, he dies naturally in office.

[–] Wisas62 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Effective tax rate of 23.64%. He's very nearly in the 1% as far as yearly wages go, probably is when you calculate his total net worth. He paid $146k in taxes, more than some people will pay in their whole lifetime.

[–] Bernie_Sandals 11 points 7 months ago

He's in the top 5%-2% of income, with the 1% starting at 800k or so.

He's worth about 10 million dollars.

The 1% of Networth begins around 10 billion dollars.

By income He's near the top, but definitely not near the top of net worth. I'm guessing the income statistics get skewed by the fact that usually the ultra wealthy don't take most of their wealth growth as income.

load more comments
view more: next ›