Did Michelle Obama get paid for a no-show job?

Did Michelle Obama get paid for a no-show job? Sweetness-light blog thinks it is possible.


http://sweetness-light.com/archive/michelle-obama-got-63k-for-job-she-had-quit

Michelle Obama Got $63K For No Show Job?

First this report from her fans at the Associated Press:

Obamas report $2.7 million in income for 2008

By Sharon Theimer, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, millionaires from his best-selling books, made $2.7 million last year and paid just under one-third of their adjusted income in federal taxes. While the income, mostly his, was far more than the U.S. median household income of about $50,000, it was quite a decrease from the $4.2 million the Obamas made in 2007.

Both years, nearly all of the earnings came from Obama’s best-selling books. "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope" — brought in about $2.5 million in royalties last year, according to copies of the returns released by the White House on Wednesday, the federal filing deadline.

Obama earned $139,204 as a Democratic senator from Illinois last year before leaving his seat after winning the November election. Michelle Obama received a salary of $62,709 from the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she was an executive.

The couple’s total federal tax came to $855,323. That was 32 percent of their adjusted gross income of $2,656,902.

The Obamas overpaid by $26,014, and elected to apply that amount to their 2009 taxes.

The couple’s federal tax deductions included about $50,000 in home mortgage interest.

They reported contributing $172,050 to charity last year, including $25,000 each to the CARE international relief agency and the United Negro College Fund. That $172,050 represented about 6.5 percent of the family’s adjusted gross income. That percentage is roughly two to three times the national average for household donations to charity, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

The Obamas gave a total of $1,400 to five churches. In contrast to 2007, they gave nothing to the Trinity United Church of Christ. Barack Obama was a longtime member of the church, and gave it $26,270 in 2007, but resigned from it and cut ties with its pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, after Wright made incendiary comments that became a campaign issue.

The Obamas’ total Illinois income tax was $78,765, their state return showed.

The White House also released Vice President Joe Biden’s tax returns. Biden and his wife, Jill, earned $269,256 last year.

The Bidens’ main sources of income were salaries from the Senate, Widener University, Delaware Technical & Community College and royalties from the audio rights to the vice president’s memoir, "Promises to Keep."

According to tax returns released by the vice president’s office, the Bidens paid $46,952 in federal income taxes and $11,164 in Delaware state income taxes. They donated $1,885 to charity.

Biden served in the Senate from 1973 until Jan. 15 of this year.

But as we noted at the time, the May 11, 2007 edition of the Washington Post breathlessly reported:

Michelle Obama’s Career Timeout

For Now, Weight Shifts in Work-Family Tug of War

By Anne E. Kornblut

Friday, May 11, 2007; Page A01

CHICAGO — For the first time in her adult life, Michelle Obama is about to be unemployed.

She never aspired to be a stay-at-home wife or mother. For years she wrestled with the issues that many professional women with families face, chiefly whether to quit her job. Now, that is what Obama, 43, has decided to do. And though she will hardly be homebound, she admits to being conflicted.

Since having her first child, Obama has struggled to decide work’s role in her life.

“It is very odd,” she said of the prospect of interrupting her career, during one of her first one-on-one interviews since her husband, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), announced he is running for president.

“Every other month [since] I’ve had children I’ve struggled with the notion of ‘Am I being a good parent? Can I stay home? Should I stay home? How do I balance it all?’ ” she said. “I have gone back and forth every year about whether I should work.”

When she finally winds down her duties as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals in the days ahead (she was promoted to the position soon after her husband joined the Senate), she said, it “will be the first time that I haven’t gotten up and gone to a job.” …

If Mrs. Obama did quit her (sinecure at the University Of Chicago Hospitals in May 2007, how was it that she got $$62,709 from the University Of Chicago Hospitals for her work as a chief executive?

Furthermore, as we have noted before, Mrs. Obama’s position was so vitally important to the University Of Chicago Hospital that once she left it – it was done away with.

From the University Of Chicago’s News Office:

Michelle Obama Resigns Position at University of Chicago Medical Center

January 9, 2009

Michelle Obama has resigned her leadership post at the University of Chicago Medical Center as she prepares to take on her new role at the White House as First Lady.

During the presidential campaign, she had been on leave as Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the Medical Center…

In light of her departure, Madara announced that the Medical Center’s Office of Community and External Affairs has been reorganized under the leadership of Dr. Eric Whitaker, Executive Vice President for Strategic Affiliations and Associate Dean for Community Based Research.

Madara said the move would enhance support for the Urban Health Initiative, an ambitious effort to reshape health care on Chicago’s South Side.

Leif Elsmo will continue his role as Executive Director of the Office of Community Affairs, reporting to Whitaker, and coordinating all aspects of the office’s functions…

So, officially, Mrs. Obama was on a ‘leave of absence’ since May 2007. (She didn’t quit, as the Post article had suggested, lest she not have a job if Mr. Obama lost the election.)

Still, we know this is Chicago, but isn’t $63,000 quite a lot for a no-show job?

And isn’t this exactly the kind of executive corruption that Mr. Obama rails against?

Of course, when you think about it, Mr. Obama was paid for a no-show job as well, when he collected his Senate pay. And Mr. Biden, too.

But we have come to expect as much from our public servants.