Obama - Just Another Greedy Politician

Source: Sun-Times

September 26, 2006 - BY DENNIS CONRAD

Senator's family rakes in nearly $1.7 mil. in 2005

WASHINGTON -- For the Barack Obama household, 2005 was a very good year.

Not only was Obama sworn in as a freshman U.S. senator, but he reaped big bucks from book deals and his wife got her own promotion and hefty pay raise.

Their total reported household income surpassed the total from the seven previous years combined.

Sen. Barack Obama's family raked in nearly $1.7 million in 2005.

Their total reported household income surpassed the total from the seven previous years combined.

According to joint tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service, the Obamas, with their two girls, had $1.67 million in total income last year.

Book royalties and advances brought in about $1.2 million for the senator-author. In late 2004, Obama landed a three-book deal worth $1.9 million. The first book under the contract, The Audacity of Hope: Reclaiming the American Dream, is scheduled for release in mid-October and is to focus on his political convictions and how he became the Senate's only African American.

During 2005, the South Side Democrat's income as a public official almost tripled to $154,047, after he left the Illinois state Senate for the nation's capital.

His wife's income as an administrator at the not-for-profit University of Chicago Hospitals nearly tripled to $316,962, from $121,910.

In 2005, she was also elected to the board of directors of west suburban Westchester-based TreeHouse Foods, which calls itself the nation's largest pickle and pepper supplier. For that, she received $12,000 and $33,000 from a subsidiary.

She was promoted to the hospitals' vice president for community and external affairs in March. Obama said that his wife, who, like him, is a Harvard law school graduate, was deserving of the promotion and raise.

Her previous position was less demanding, he said, and because his Senate campaign had ended and she had more time to devote to her work, she was more marketable with her educational background and other strengths.

''You can't fault her for being smarter and better qualified for all sorts of jobs than I am,'' he said.

Their reportable charitable giving reached $77,315, with $25,000 for the Illinois Reading Council; $20,000 for the Michelle Lee Fund, a literacy program; $16,000 for CARE, including an AIDS project in Obama's late father's native Kenya, $5,000 to the Trinity United Church of Christ and $11,315 for ''miscellaneous'' organized charities.