Obama $5.5 Million Income 2009

Obama $5.5 Million Income 2009 – On tax day, April 15, the White House released 2009 tax returns revealing President Obama’s income is $5.5 million in his first year in office, an amount that outweighs his recent predecessors while in power.
Apparently, strong book sales from two autobiographies boosted Obama’s income, more than doubling his earnings from the previous year. He collected $2.7 million in 2008 and $4.2 million in 2007.

The returns show Obama paid nearly $1.8 million in federal taxes and another $163,000 in Illinois state taxes. The Obama family donated $329,100 to a total of 40 charities in 2009, with $100,000 of that going to the United Negro College Fund and to CARE, an organization that combats world poverty, reports the LATimes.com. Separately, his controversial $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize award was donated to 10 different charities.

Obama authored “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope,” which helped secure his once unstable finances. In 2000, four years before he became a national figure, his credit card was rejected when he attempted to rent a car.
Speaking in Pennsylvania in December, Obama recalled a difficult period when funds weren’t readily available to pay bills.
“We’re not that far removed from struggling to pay the bills,” he said. Five, six years ago, we were still paying off student loans. Still trying to figure out if we pay this bill this month, what do we have to give up next month? We’re not that far away from there.”
The gap between barely enough to plenty is closing rapidly. Since, Obama has progressed from a middle class working-man to a multimillionaire, while the census bureau reports the median household income is about $52,000.
“He’s a real champion of the middle class – like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers and all those other middle class Americans out there,” said Charles Wilson, a Republican pollster.