Nerf-Coated World

10 of the top 12 richest senators belong to...

...the Democratic Party. Huh. And they've got the top five, too.

  • John Kerry, D-Massachusetts: $163,626,399

  • Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin: $111,015,016

  • John Rockefeller, D -West Virginia: $81,648,018

  • Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey: $71,035,025

  • Dianne Feinstein, D-California: $26,377,109

  • Peter Fitzgerald, R-Illinois: $26,132,013

  • Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey $17,789,018

  • Bill Frist, R-Tennessee: $15,108,042

  • John Edwards, D-North Carolina: $12,844,029

  • Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts: $9,905,009

  • Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico: $7,981,015

  • Bob Graham, D-Florida: $7,691,052
I don't begrudge any of these guys their wealth; rather, I think it's wonderful. It reminds me how great this country is.

But do you think maybe these guys could quit claiming that the tax cuts are too big -- when they've got plenty to go around?

UPDATE: For another angle, did anyone else catch the curious phrasing in this story?

Financial disclosure forms released Friday by the nation's 100 senators show there are at least 40 millionaires among them -- 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats.
I don't want to accuse CNN of obscuring the truth, but this breakdown -- 22 millionaire Republicans vs. 18 millionaire Democrats -- is not at all the most interesting aspect of the statistics. Looking at the data provided in the story, I was more struck by the sheer amount of money the millionaire Democrat senators have.

So I did my own breakdown. It turns out that of the millionaires in the Senate, the Republicans have a combined total of just over $99 million in assets. The Democrats? Over $526 million.

That's over half a billion dollars. Split between only 18 people. All Democrats. Look at the numbers again. The millionaire Democrats have more than five times the wealth of the millionaire Republicans. The top two wealthiest Democrats each have more money than all 22 millionaire Republicans combined.

I only bring this up because there are dozens of ways you can break down statistics, and stories like this are great if the numbers reveal some sort of trend or some sort of distinction that challenges conventional wisdom. (And if there's nothing interesting in the report, why bother putting it on the front page?) These numbers are staggering; I can't believe CNN's editors ignored this.

So CNN didn't break down the statistics to make the Democrats look bad. That doesn't prove bias. But you do have to wonder where this line came from:

The top three wealthiest senators are Democrats: John Kerry of Massachusetts, with a net worth of at least $164 million; Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, with a net worth of at least $111 million, and John "Jay" Rockefeller of West Virginia, with an estimated net worth of at least $82 million.
Only the top three? No... we've seen the data. Why didn't they mention that the top five senators were all Democrats? Usually when there's a trend -- such as the top X of a group -- you don't stop at some arbitrary number... say, three. You stop wherever the trend stops.

There's just no rational explanation for this, other than that the person responsible for this report was deliberately trying to downplay the fact that the Democrats in the Senate are far wealthier, on the whole, than the Republicans.

No, for those of you thinking I'm a right-wing nutball, this isn't a capital case, and it really isn't that big of a deal. But it is misleading, and any journalistic source ought to be called out for this kind of thing.

Posted by Matt at June 13, 2003 10:17 PM