President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden earned $619,976 in 2023, according to their joint tax returnreleased by the White House on Monday – the deadline date for Americans to file their taxes.
The White House also released the return for Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, showing that pair made $450,299 last year.
“President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office should be open and honest with the American people,” the White House said in a statement on Monday, “and that the longstanding tradition of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue unbroken.”
That statement could be seen as a dig at former President Donald Trump, who declined to voluntarily release his tax returns while he was president. Six years of Trump’s tax returns, including from his time as president, were released to the public by the House Ways and Means Committee at the end of 2022.
The bulk of the Bidens’ income came from President Biden’s congressionally mandated $400,000 salary, along with pensions. The first lady also earned $85,985 from her position as a teacher at Northern Virginia Community College.
I’m of two minds here. I don’t think anyone for any reason should be allowed to earn over a half million per year. But also there are people whose positions are far less important who have earnings significantly higher than this.
The carryover effect of an economic system that that has catastrophically imbalanced wealth distribution means that in order for actually qualified people occupying roles that are important, you need to compensate them at a very high rate.
I generally agree with you, but half a mil is peanuts and those aren’t the people I think we should be eating. I think something in the 5-10m range is where we should be taking 90% of it or something. But yeah, you need to pay leaders enough for the job to be worth doing, because the goodness of one’s heart doesn’t provide unfortunately.