RollCall: Members of Congress are worth five times more than the average American household.

[kpete]

MORE-Breakdown:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress-richer-ever-mostly-top

Link to tweet

[Hortensis]

1. Note the huge difference between senate and house.

Gingrich wanted to put a stop to Republican congressmen socializing with Democrats, something that of course made conservatives more informed and opened minded and willing to work across the aisle. So he reordered the scheduling so that Repubs would tend to go home over the weekends and not move to DC. That's why many house members who can't afford to maintain two homes rent rooms in houses or sleep in their offices during the week when congress is in session.

As for the senators, national wealth quadrupled over the last 30 years of the 20th century due to technological advances (and of course has continued), along with reaganomics engineering to make it flow upwards. To a very real degree, even idiots only needed to be positioned right for that wealth to flow into their pockets. Our senators aren't idiots and, as people who tend to come from affluent backgrounds in the first place, one would expect at least some degree of wealth to accompany a basic competence. And for the most part it does.

[Duppers]

3. Very good points.

They're not all multi-millionaires.

And Newt has always been a scheming, slimy asshole frog of a human being.

[Hortensis]

4. +1000 to that last. Democrats don't have people like that.

(At least not since the party returned from its 1800s period of conservative takeover to liberal domination over 100 years ago.) Certainly, nothing like that has ever been allowed to rise to our leadership.

[Duppers]

2. That DiFi's $58m claim does not include

Her husband's, Richard Blum's, great wealth.

Imagine this is true of other spouses' wealth on this list. They hide their money. So that claim of 5 times more, imo, is low-balling the actual numbers.

[BSdetect]

5. Do these amounts include all their overseas secret stashes?

[inwiththenew]

6. "A politician who is poor is a poor politician"

Isn't that how the saying goes?

They get all that sweet sweet insider trading and dark money.

[ehrnst]

7. So all politicians make money from "sweet insider trading" and "dark money?"

or just some?

[ehrnst]

8. Unfortunately our system is set up to exclude people who can't afford take off two+ years

from their job and commute between a home in DC and the home where their family lives.

Paul Wellstone was one of the few that bucked that system. Fortunately, he had a PHD, which did inspire more people to support his initial run for Senate.

I think that we demand that our best and brightest represent us - in terms of intellect, social skills, and the ability to sit at a table with and stare down when neccessary, the wealthiest and most powerful in our culture.

Usually those characteristics lead one to monetary success as well. Paul wasn't elite in the sense of wealth, but he certainly was in intellect.