Congress and Occupy Wall Street: New Heights of Wealth and Wall Street Ties

By Joseph Orovic: Subscribe to Joseph's RSS feed

December 2, 2011 5:15 AM EST

Looking for the richest 1 percent? There's a gaggle roaming the Capitol Hill Rotunda.

At the height of Occupy Wall Street's physical presence, many suggested the movement leave the cavernous streets of Lower Manhattan and head south to Washington, D.C. Ostensibly the move would have taken lawmakers to task for not addressing occupiers' grievances. In reality, the protesters could have decried some elected officials' financial positions. Many lawmakers, it turns out, are the 1 percent.

Previous image Enlarge Close Next image

Share This Story

For all the focus on Wall Street's ills and the growing income disparity in America, a prominent target has been overlooked: Congress.

Depending upon your rubric for determining wealth (whether or not you include primary residence and other personal property), 37 to 57 members of Congress are in the richest 1 percent, defined by a net worth of over $9 million. Their paths to riches vary, but the truly wealthy few (and those outside the real estate business) have stored their wealth largely in blind trusts and investments in Wall Street. Their legislation often affects their wallets directly.

And perversely, the wealthy syphoning a majority of the growth? It's happening in Washington D.C. as well.

Must Read

Sponsorship Link

Follow us

Top 1 Percent of Congress Grabs Most Wealth, Too

According to Roll Call, Congress's net worth has grown 25 percent since 2008, with 90 percent going to the top 50 -- a.k.a. Capitol Hill's version of the 1 percent.

Georgia State University real estate professor Alan Ziobrowski has published studies tracking lawmakers' investment choices and noted they often to do much better than the average American's. His conclusion?

"There is no doubt in my mind that they are trading in some way on information that is there," he told Roll Call.

The members' ties to Wall Street may not just help them manage their own wealth, but it may inform their decision-making. When President Barack Obama championed the Buffett Rule, which would increase taxes on the wealthy through mainly the capital gains tax, members of Congress were quick to deride to proposal. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 40 percent of members of the House and nearly half of all senators earned money through capital gains in 2009.

The same skewed figures apply for the median net worth of the congressional super committee, which failed to reach a deal on cutting $1.2 trillion from the budget deficit last month. Median net worth of the dozen lawmakers: $1.2 million.

The dim implication of a two-way street in funding becomes glaring when one considers the punching bag of all Wall Street haters, Goldman Sachs. According to the Center, 19 members of Congress, many of them in positions of authority, have cash sitting with the "Vampire Squid." Some are on committees charged with overseeing Wall Street or hold sizable wealth. They include boldface names like Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.; House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

But the Kingpin of Goldman holdings is Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, who invested an average of $550,000 with the Wall Street firm, according to the Center. He also happens to sit on the House Financial Services Committee, which decides upon many of the federal regulations that can help or hurt Goldman's business.

Goldman and its employees have seemingly returned the favor by contributing around $124,000 in campaign cash to 12 of the lawmakers invested in them.

1 | 2 Next page | View all

This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader