1:01pm EST
CHENEY GOT HOW MUCH?: I flipped the television over to watch the 11pm news last night and when it was over Jay Leno's show came on immediately afterward. I checked the TiVo this morning and sure enough - both of the late night funny men couldn't resist the urge to make mention that Vice President Cheney got a tax refund this year of $1.9 million dollars.
You could feel the collective outrage across the nation. I was as though the entire country exhaled hate at the same time.
And it IS TRUE, Cheney got the refund after he adjusted his reported earnings to the IRS. In 2005 he earned $8.8 million. (Well he and his wife Lynn did together - a portion of which was her book royalties.) The VP had excercised stock options from 2001 to be set aside for charitable contributions.
And THATS what the late night dunderbrains beat the Cheney's up for last night. But guess what...
The Cheney's gave $6.87 million from the stock options and the book royalties to charities, which included dozens of churches, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, as wells as charities serving New Orleans and Mississippi flood regions.
They had paid in taxes throughout the year $2,468,566. When you deducted the $6.87 million from the $8.8 million they reported as income - that left the actual income as $1.9 million. On $1.9 million they only owed the government $529,636 in actual taxes. $2,468,566-$529,636 entitled them to a refund of $1.9 and change that the government owed them.
But to the circus barkers of late night television it was all a big opportunity to impugn the character of these public servants who gave MORE than generously to significant needs in the nation.
And for a little comparison - in 1997, the then VP under President Clinton - Albert Gore gave a whopping $353 to charity for the entire year.
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