Clinton tax returns

From The Washington Post:

In the past eight years, Bill and Hillary Clinton earned a combined $109 million, with the former president collecting nearly half of that money as a speaker hired at times by companies that have been among his wife's most generous political supporters.

After leaving the White House, the Clintons earned $30 million from their best-selling books and brought in as much as $15 million more through an investment partnership with one of her top presidential campaign fundraisers, California billionaire Ronald Burkle. The disclosures came with yesterday's long-awaited release of the Clintons' joint tax returns, a move made in the thick of Sen. Clinton's fight with Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) for the Democratic nomination.

Sen. Clinton (N.Y.) initially resisted making her family's finances public, but pressure on her to match Obama's disclosure grew in February when she disclosed that she had dipped into her personal account to lend her campaign $5 million.

"We've come a long way from Harry Truman," said Leon E. Panetta, a Clinton administration official who now directs the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, referring to the "man from Missouri" who left the presidency to live a modest lifestyle in his home state. "In many ways, it is becoming the American story. A lot of people who have devoted their lives to public service, who lived hand-to-mouth during months of public service, are suddenly able, after public life, to find some rewards."

The Clintons paid $33 million in federal taxes during the eight-year period and donated $10 million to charity, said Jay Carson, a Clinton campaign spokesman. "The Clintons have now made public 30 years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service," he said.

The New York Times tells us that the Clintons charitable contributions all went to their own foundation:

[T]he Clintons paid $33.8 million in federal taxes and claimed deductions for $10.2 million in charitable contributions. The contributions went to a family foundation run by the Clintons that has given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy.

This is like Al Gore proving his environmental concern by buying carbon offsets from a company which he owns.

What a bunch of fraking hypocrites.

Oh, and The Politico tells us that there are 18 million unaccounted for.

Perhaps Bill will turn out to have been Customer #10.