Worth It!

Yes, it’s time once again for that all-time family fun game, “What’s This Guy Worth?, or, Exactly How Rich and Out-of-Touch Are the Rich, Out-of-Touch Assholes Who Are Going to Tell Us How to Fix the Economy?”.

On our last episode, we examined the occupations and net worth of members of the U.S. Senate, and discovered that, shockingly, they are a bunch of unbelievably rich dudes.  (Actually, the last episode found us trying to do the same to the U.S. House of Representatives, but seriously, there are like a thousand of them, and there are only so many times you can write “millionaire attorney” before wanting to eat a bullet.)  This time, with the Republican National Convention underway in Tampa, we decided to take a look at the featured speakers at that cavalcade of plutocrats, and see what’s the socioeconomic haps on the folks who want to spend the next four years selling you austerity on the installment plan.

Now, we’ve gotten a lot of calls and letters from folks saying “So what if these people are rich?  That doesn’t make them unfit to govern.”  Indeed it does not.  In fact, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America’s greatest president, was himself a toffy aristo who could have hired my entire family to carry him aloft like a human palanquin during the Depression.  But to what extent you can trust rich people is dependent entirely on what they are trying to tell you.  If the message is “Let me show you how to avoid paying taxes,”,  you can trust them about 100%; if it’s “Let me recommend a luxury automobile”, it’s more like 90%.  “I have everything I could ever possibly want, so I’ve dedicated my life to helping other people get the opportunity to succeed” was FDR’s pitch, and he was pretty reliable on that score.  But “Allow me to explain how I can lift you out of poverty by lowering my own tax rate and ensuring my businesses can operate without oversight” is about as trustworthy a statement from a multimillionaire as “You can trust me with your car and your wallet” is from a seedy guy on a street corner chewing on a toothpick.

Additionally, you can make a pretty good argument that someone sitting on five million dollars of personal wealth has a lot less reason to care about the economy than someone living on food stamps.  Every single one of the people listed below is going to talk about economic freedom, without explaining how you can have any freedom whatsoever if your bank account is empty and you don’t have any income; every one of them is going to talk about economic opportunity, without explaining how lowering the tax rate of millionaires creates opportunities for folks making minimum wage.

So, with that in mind, enjoy the free market blathering of the people listed below and try to figure out how, exactly, their policies are going to do a goddamn thing to help you or 200 million of your closest friends.

KELLY AYOTTE

Title:  Senator from New Hampshire; selective deleter of e-mails

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $1,300,000

GRANT BENNETT

Title:  CEO of CPS Technologies; former Bain moneyman

Civilian occupation:  Businessman

Net worth:  $8,900,000

JOHN BOEHNER

Title:  Speaker of the House of Representatives; non-contributing zero

Civilian occupation:  Management consultant

Net worth:  $1,700,000

PAM BONDI

Title:  Attorney General of Florida; Doc Gooden persecutor

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $450,000

JEB BUSH

Title:  Former governor of Florida; forgotten son

Civilian occupation:  Investment banker

Net worth:  $2,400,000

CHRIS CHRISTIE

Title:  Governor of New Jersey; ranch dressing overindulger

Civilian occupation:  Investment banker

Net worth:  $3,800,000

TED CRUZ

Title:  Texas senatorial candidate; industrial espionage enabler

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $3,500,000

ARTUR DAVIS

Title:  Ex-congressman from Alabama; National Review diversity hire

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  -$25,000 (note:  Davis is a former Democrat)

MARY FALLIN

Title:  Governor of Oklahoma; rain dance practitioner

Civilian occupation:  None

Net worth:  $3,600,000

LUIS FORTUÑO

Title:  Governor of Puerto Rico; gerrymanderista

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $2,160,000

NEWT GINGRICH

Title:  Former Speaker of the House; demented smut novelist

Civilian occupation:  Lunatic

Net worth:  $7,000,000

NIKKI HALEY

Title:  Governor of South Carolina; voter rights retractionist

Civilian occupation:  Accountant

Net worth:  $1,250,000

MIKE HUCKABEE

Title:  Former governor of Arkansas; sweater-wearing rape apologist

Civilian occupation:  ‘Media personality’

Net worth:  $5,000,000

BOBBY JINDAL

Title:  Governor of Louisiana; bootlicking pie-face

Civilian occupation:  None

Net worth:  $2,100,000

JOHN KASICH

Title:  Governor of Ohio; union-buster

Civilian occupation:  None

Net worth:  $1,400,000

MIA LOVE

Title:  Mayor of Saratoga Springs; not pornographic actress

Civilian occupation:  Flight attendant

Net worth:  unknown, but status as party’s token black female Mormon can’t be measured in dollars

CONNIE MACK IV

Title:  Congressman from Florida; grinning commie-basher

Civilian occupation:  Marketing executive

Net worth:  $400,000

SUSANA MARTINEZ

Title:  Governor of New Mexico; pro-death pro-lifer

Civilian occupation:  None

Net worth:  $700,000

JOHN McCAIN

Title:  Senator from Arizona; superannuated maverick/loser

Civilian occupation:  Naval aviator

Net worth:  $40,400,000

MITCH McCONNELL

Title:  Senator from Kentucky; petroleum industry toady

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $9,800,000

BOB McDONNELL

Title:  Governor of Virginia; liquor store auctioneer

Civilian occupation:  Businessman, attorney

Net worth:  $1,800,000

SAM OLENS

Title:  Attorney General of Georgia; big boss man

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $1,000,000

RAND PAUL

Title:  Senator from Kentucky; daddy’s second vote

Civilian occupation:  Ophthalmologist

Net worth:  $1,100,000

TIM PAWLENTY

Title:  former governor of Minnesota; boring sad sack

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $1,200,000

ROB PORTMAN

Title:  Senator from Ohio; butt-kissing nonentity

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $6,700,000

REINCE PRIEBUS

Title:  RNC chairman; Grand Old Party payola bursar

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $4,500,000

CONDOLEEZZA RICE

Title:  Former secretary of state; dissimulating war propagandist

Civilian occupation:  All-around facilitator of power

Net worth:  $5,000,000

CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS

Title:  Congresswoman from Washington; Club for Growth leathergirl

Civilian occupation:  Farmer

Net worth:  $2,200,000

ANN ROMNEY

Title:  Former first lady of Massachusetts; horse-dancing expert

Civilian occupation:  Aristocrat

Net worth: $250,000,000

MITT ROMNEY

Title:  Republican presidential candidate; Thurston Howell III

Civilian occupation:  Zillionaire

Net worth:  $250,000,000

MARCO RUBIO

Title:  Senator from Florida; parental exaggerator

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $1,000,000

PAUL RYAN

Title:  Congressman from Wisconsin; Peter to Ayn Rand’s Jesus

Civilian occupation:  Wienermobile manager

Net worth:  $4,500,000

BRIAN SANDOVAL

Title:  Governor of Nevada; mob flunky

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $1,300,000

RICK SANTORUM

Title:  Former Pennsylvania senator; living embodiment of gay panic

Civilian occupation:  Attorney

Net worth:  $4,200,000

THOMAS STERNBERG

Title:  Founder of Staples; grandiose plutocrat

Civilian occupation:  Businessman

Net worth:  $202,000,000

JOHN THUNE

Title:  Senator from South Dakota; warmongering religious goon

Civilian occupation:  None

Net worth:  $675,000

JANINE TURNER

Title:  Tea Party activist; former Sly Stallone on-screen love interest

Civilian occupation:  Co-star of “Northern Exposure”

Net worth:  $1,680,000

LUCÉ VELA

Title:  First Lady of Puerto Rico; Goucher College alum

Civilian occupation:   Attorney

Net worth:  $2,160,000

SCOTT WALKER

Title:  Governor of Wisconsin, demonizer of schoolteachers

Civilian occupation:  None

Net worth:  $200,000

BOB WHITE

Title:  Romney campaign manager; Bain Capital hatchet-man

Civilian occupation:  Businessman

Net worth:  $20,000,000

One Comment

  1. james stengel

    A couple you missed— Bill and Hillary Clinton, one a sexual pervert and his enabler as well as fraudulent real estate salesmen. Oh did I leave out impeached? 110 Million dollars

    Barak and Michelle Obama two Chicago Mafia puppets who fooled an entire nation. 56 million dollars above the table, one billion dollars under the table from alternative energy interests

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