The White House has released President Obama’s and Vice President Joe Biden’s 2008 financial disclosure forms. (The release came at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday.) The news in the documents is that Obama is still making a substantial amount of money from his books, while Biden has significant debts.
We don’t have precise numbers, because the forms allow public officials to list assets and liabilities within broad categories, but Obama listed income between $100,000 and $1 million in royalties from his autobiography Dreams From My Father. He listed income between $1 million and $5 million from his other book, The Audacity of Hope. That was in addition to what he earned as a U.S. senator for most of 2008.
As for investments, Obama reported having as little as $350,000, and as much as $600,000, in various funds. But his big money — somewhere between $1 million and $5 million — was in U.S. Treasury Bills. He listed no debts.
Biden is another story. According to the documents, his investments were scattered among many funds, most with a relatively small amounts in them. In total, they might be as little as $115,000 or as much as $465,000. Biden listed debts that could be as low as $180,000 or high as $480,000, including lines of credit, a home equity loan, and a loan against an insurance policy. (Officials are not required to list the mortgage, if any, on their home.) It is not clear from the documents, but it is possible that Biden, long known as one of the least wealthy members of the U.S. Senate, has a negative net worth.
