| | Background and Source of Wealth
Thanks to Jim Hightower for profiles | Assets |
George W. Bush
UnPresident | Bribes from favor-seeking friends of his father disguised as investments | $11 - $21.6 million |
Dick Cheney
Regent | Payoffs from Halliburton for lucrative contracts awarded while Secretary of Defense | $19.3 - $81.7 million |
Spencer Abraham
Energy | One-term senator from Michigan who once sponsored a bill to abolish the Energy Department. Especially active in fight over requiring greater fuel efficiency from SUVs, giving him special brownie points with the energy and the auto industries. | |
John Ashcroft
Attorney General | Sponsor of 2000 Senate bill to extend the patent on the super-profitable allergy pill Claritin, owned by the giant pharmaceutical firm Schering-Plough, which gave him $50,000 for his last Senate campaign. He also got campaign contributions of $1.7 million from oil, chemical and paper companies that were grateful for Ashcroft's opposition to funding environmental enforcement, voting for rollback of clean water protections and letting mining companies dump cyanide and other wastes on public land. | $1.1 - $3.3 million |
Elaine Chao
Labor | An investment banker and corporate director, former vice president of Bank of America and board member for Northwest Airlines, Dole Food, Clorox and Columbia/HCA Health Care. | $2.3 - $5.4 million |
Mitchell Daniels
Budget | | $18 - $75.3 million |
Donald Evans
Commerce | | $11.4 - $45.1 million |
Mel Martinez
Housing, Urban Development | No corporate connections; formerly the top manager of Orange County, Fla. That's Orlando/Disney World, and if you have visited, you know that ending urban sprawl is not his specialty. | $1.6 - $4 million |
Norm Mineta
Transportation | Corporate VP for Lockheed Martin; also former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, where his major contributors were the American Trucking Association, Boeing, General Electric, Greyhound, Lockheed, Northwest Airlines, UPS, Union Pacific and United Airlines. | |
Gale Norton
Interior | Formerly with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, an anti-environmental group funded by oil companies. Prominent member of "property rights" groups funded by Boise Cascade, DuPont and Louisiana Pacific; national chairwoman of the Coalition for Republican Environmental Advocates, funded by the American Forest Paper Association, Amoco, ARCO, the Chemical Manufacturers Association and Ford. | |
Paul O'Neill
Treasury | CEO of Alcoa, the aluminum giant, and previously CEO of International Paper Co. and on the boards of Eastman Kodak and Lucent Technologies. | $62.8 - $103.3 million |
Roderick Paige
Education | Formerly Houston school superintendent, where he promoted corporatization. Food service went to Aramark Inc., payroll to Peoplesoft and accounting to SAP. Last year, he cut an exclusive marketing deal with Coca-Cola to put machines in the school hallways. He also brought in Primed Corp.'s Channel One, the "educational channel" that spends two out of every 10 minutes of broadcast time selling M&M/Mars, Pepsico, Reebok and Nintendo. | $1.1 - $2.9 million |
Colin Powell
State | On the board of America Online and was recipient of $100,000 a speech to a list of corporations too long to believe. | $19.5 - $68.9 million |
Anthony Principi
Veterans Affairs | Heir to family-owned real estate company, also former president of QTC Medical Services Inc.; later with Lockheed Martin and most recently president of the airless technology firm Federal Network. | $1.6 - $3.6 million |
Donald Rumsfeld
Defense | Formerly CEO of General Instrument Corp. and drug giant G.D. Searle & Co., also on the boards of Asea Brown Boveri, a huge Swedish engineering firm, and the Rand Corp. Also on the advisory board of Salomon Smith Barney, the Wall Street investment firm. | $61 - $242.5 million |
Tommy Thompson
Health, Human Services | Former governor of Wisconsin whose major contributors were HMOs, hospital chains, nursing homes, clinics, doctors and insurance companies. Phillip Morris gave him $72,000 in campaign contributions. | $1.3 - $3.4 million |
Ann Veneman
Agriculture | Lawyer with a firm specializing in representing agribusiness giants and biotech corporations. On board of Calgene Inc., a subsidiary of Monsanto, the first firm to market genetically altered food. Also a participant in the International Policy Council of Agriculture, Food and Trade, a group funded by Monsanto, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Kraft and Nestle. | $680,000 - $2 million |
Christine Whitman
Environment | | $6.4 - $20.2 million |
Robert Zoellick
Trade | | $3.3 - $13 million |
| Total | | $222 - $696
million |
