Old "Weathervane" McCain said he would run a civil campaign characterized by "straight talk" and transparency. The general has barely started and he's already 0 for 3!
In an excellent report, davefromqueens described McCain's response to a question about education:
It was laughable when McCain tried to talk about education. He was ill informed and elitist. First it was the usual gobbly-gook about private schools and school choice, which of course isn't school choice at all. Then McCain had the audacity to equate him and Cindy sending their kids to super rich, super well funded private schools as if everybody would have access to this. It was bizarre.
Let's take a swing at John and Cindy McCain, their taxes and their "charitable" foundation. This piñata is chock full of goodies. Here's a real treat:
The McCains received major tax deductions for supporting elite schools attended by their children. Sweeeet.....
All aboard, The $traight Talk Expre$$ is leaving the station! (h/t to pat208 for a brilliant label!)
"Straight talk" isn't just telling the part of the story you like.
A story from April in the LA Times offers a summary of McCain's 2007 federal tax returns. It's an interesting read. A cursory examination of this thin paper trail provided some tantalizing leads. Following them gives surprising results.
First, here are the 2007 tax return numbers taken from the LA Times article. For simplicity, I am rounding the numbers:
Item | Amount |
Senate Salary | $162,000 |
Book Royalties | $177,000 |
Navy Pension | $58,000 |
Interest | $50 |
Dividends | $75 |
Cindy's Salary | $215,000(*) |
Fed. Income Tax | -$117,000 |
Alt. Min. Tax | -$5,400 |
Personal Staff (4) | -$136,500(*) |
Staff FICA/FUTA | -$34,000 |
Charity | -$106,000 |
Alimony | -$18,000 |
* half reported on his returns, half reported on Cindy McCain's returns.
When you net everything out, there is about $59,000 left over for beers and burgers. Apparently my estimate isn't too far off, the article stated:
Asked whether his wife was supporting him, McCain's campaign staff offered a separate income calculation for 2007 showing that the senator's surplus income after expenses amounted to about $64,000 and suggested that he was providing for himself.
"Providing for himself" is an interesting way of putting it. You have to wonder how a guy who reported only $50 in investment interest and $75 in dividends can afford to
own four homes across the nation and employ a staff of at least four that in 2007 cost about $273,000, half of which was listed on the senator's tax return. McCain and his wife's properties, all held mortgage-free, include their creek-side ranch outside Sedona, Ariz. In 2006, they purchased a $4.7-million condo in Phoenix; and in 2004, she bought a $2.6-million beachfront property near the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego County, according to property records.
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that two of the properties were hers to begin with. Let's also accept the beachfront property is paid for by her as well. That still leaves the condo in Phoenix. The article specifically says "they purchased a $4.7-million condo in Phoenix." I'm assuming that means his name is on the title and deed. Since they bought it outright, I am impressed McCain scrimped together $2.3 million on his meager earnings. It must have taken him at least 40 years of saving all his surplus income to do that -- especially after donating more than $100,000 to charity. What a saint. Who was the beneficiary of his largesse?
According to the article:
The 2007 tax return shows that McCain gave $105,467 to charity, most of it to a family foundation that supports surgery for disfigured children and clears mines abroad. The contribution included all of McCain's earnings from his books.
According to the tax returns, John McCain donated 20% of his pretax income to this foundation, and his wife serves as its chair for free.
Now THAT is interesting...
Transparently phony operations are not what folks expect when they hear talk about "transparency."
Cindy McCain made about $430,000 as chair of the business she inherited, but she didn't declare any salary from her position as chair of the John and Cindy McCain Foundation. I guess all of it goes to mine clearing operations and surgery for kids. This is incredibly magnanimous. It sounds almost too good to be true. That got me thinking. Over the years, I have followed the land mine debates and I don't recall McCain ever taking a leading position on them. Of course, I could be wrong, so I checked:
If you go back over all the senate bills since 1990 and look for "land mines" you find a grand total of 19. This includes the 1995 legislation S. 940(caution:PDF)
S. 940: To support proposals to implement the United States goal of eventually eliminating antipersonnel land mines; to impose a moratorium on use of antipersonnel land mines except in limited circumstances; to provide for sanctions against foreign governments that export antipersonnel land mines, and for other purposes.
S. 940 was an important piece of legislation. It was sponsored by Leahy, and had 45 co-sponsors. McCain wasn't one of them. I remember that battle. The bill wound up going to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where it died. I was particularly bitter that President Clinton did not fight for it. If I recall correctly, the arguments against it were 1) we needed to continue using mines in North Korea and 2) we needed to support Israel in its use of mines in the Golan and Southern Lebanon.
Maybe he was a late convert to the cause. In the 109th Congress, Richard Lugar (a stalwart champion of this cause) and Barack Obama (a newcomer to the Senate) introduced S 2566(caution: PDF)
S. 2566: A bill to provide for coordination of proliferation interdiction activities and conventional arms disarmament, and for other purposes.
This bill had 26 cosponsors, including stalwart Republicans like Hagel, Chambliss, Sununu and Allen (VA). McCain's name is not on this list either.
Now that is surprising. I mean, here's a guy who donates 20% of his pretax income to a foundation dedicated to clearing land mines, but he can't be bothered to sponsor legislation that calls for their elimination?
Let's take a closer look at that foundation.
Between 2001 and 2006, McCain contributed roughly $950,000 to the foundation. That accounted for all of its listed income other than for $100 that came from an anonymous donor.
Wow! Almost a million bucks to this foundation? Pretty good for a guy who nets 50 grand a year. I'm sure he's no fool, so they must be doing something good with all that money. Of course, it's odd he isn't able to encourage others to donate. What exactly were they doing during those years?
During that period, the McCain foundation made contributions of roughly $1.6 million. More than $500,000 went to his kids’ private schools, most of which was donated when his children were attending those institutions. So McCain apparently received major tax deductions for supporting elite schools attended by his children.
McCain has four children with Cindy, all of whom attended prep schools in Arizona. Meghan McCain, McCain’s eldest child from his current marriage, went to Xavier College Preparatory. McCain’s foundation has given about $50,000 to the school, mostly during Meghan’s years there. Donations to Xavier have dropped off since Meghan graduated (in 2003 or 2004) and went on to Columbia University. For 2006, the foundation cut Xavier a check for just $250.
But what about the rest of the money? Where did that go? Glad you asked. Remember, he has four kids with Cindy.
McCain has two sons, Jim, who is now a private in the Marines, and Jack, who is attending the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Both previously attended Brophy College Prep in Phoenix, which received at least $267,000 from the senator’s foundation during the years that his sons were there.
The McCain foundation also donated money–roughly $128,000–to Christ Lutheran School, which the McCain’s 15-year-old adopted daughter, Bridget, and their son Jim both attended. In 2001, the foundation also donated $41,667 to the Phoenix Country Day School, another elite prep school where both Meghan and Jack had been students.
Collectively, McCain’s kids’ private schools rank as the largest recipient of his foundation’s money. The largest individual recipient is the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, which received $210,000 in both 2001 and 2002.
Now I know what you're thinking: What about those land mines? Checking the tax filingsfor the John and Cindy McCain Foundation, specifically, their 990-PF filings from 2006, you see they gave $25,000 to Halo Trust and Operation Smile. Comparable amounts were given in preceding years. So there you have it. The donations to land mines and facial reconstructions are a fig leaf. If I wanted to be mean, I could go into the facial reconstruction issue, but I won't. This issue actually has touched the McCains directly. One could still argue this is putting their interests first, but I'm willing to let that slide.
However, this is still a problem. If you are netting $50K a year, you don't need one to get any tax breaks. No, this is foundation, formerly called the Hensley Family Foundation is designed to shield Cindy's money. Since he is using his resources to shield hers, it gets kind of hard to claim their resources aren't comingled. By itself, personal foundations are not a scandal. They are perfectly legal. But they know this wouldn't look good if anyone actually examined it and found out what they were doing here. That is why they put in these fig leaves. What galls me about this is the sheer cynicism of the fig leaves they choose to hide behind. Straight talk... my eye.
Bottom Line: This "charitable" foundation looks like it is really a legal way of generating big tax deductions for Cindy while also keeping John safe from legal judgments, like the kind you get hit with from former wives who got kicked to the curb after you decided to trade up.