[A-List] US state: Bush admin's wealth

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Bush Has A Cabinet Full of Wealth
One-Third Top $10 Million Mark

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 18, 2002; Page A27

When Vice President Cheney and the 14 other statutory members of
President Bush's Cabinet meet, 10 of them have one thing in common: They
are millionaires.

In fact, one-third of the Cabinet members, according to their financial
disclosure statements, are in the $10 million-plus range, while another
third are in the $1 million to $5 million range.

The heaviest hitter is former Alcoa chief executive Paul H. O'Neill, now
the treasury secretary. He is worth between $67 million and $253
million. Disclosure forms do not give specific price valuations for
holdings, but instead require officials to state whether an asset is
worth from, for example, $100,000 to $250,000, or $5 million to $25
million.

Like most of his affluent colleagues in the administration, O'Neill has
taken money out of directly owned stocks to avoid allegations of
conflicts of interest and placed it in mutual, index and other funds
with a wide variety of holdings, or into government notes.

O'Neill, for example, reported that he has between $25 million and $50
million in the Vanguard Institutional Index fund, $5 million to $25
million in a Salomon Smith Barney money market fund, and $5 million to
$25 million in the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund.

The Cabinet member with roughly the same amount of assets as O'Neill is
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Over the past 25 years, Rumsfeld
has been chief executive of G.D. Searle & Co. and General Instrument
Corp., and served on a number of corporate boards, including the Tribune
Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune; and Kellogg
Co., Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Allstate Corp.

Rumsfeld reported that he is worth between $62.1 million and $115.8
million. Over the past year, he has purchased $5 million to $25 million
in the Vanguard Municipal Bond Intermediate Fund and the Bernstein
Diversified Municipal Fund, and made smaller investments of $1 million
to $5 million in the USAA Tax Exempt Intermediate Term Fund, the
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund and the Fidelity Spartan Total
Market Index Fund.

Vice President Cheney was in third place. The former chief executive of
Halliburton Co. is worth between $22 million and $104.1 million,
according to his disclosure form. Cheney has invested heavily in
tax-exempt funds, including $1 million to $5 million in the Vanguard
Tax-Exempt Money Market Fund, and $5 million to $25 million in both the
Limited-Term Tax-Exempt and Short Term Tax-Exempt Admiral Shares Funds.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has also put some of his money into
tax-exempt funds, including $5 million to $25 million into the Calvert
Fund Tax Free Long-Term Fund. His other major holding is an investment
of $5 million to $25 million in the Brandywine Blue Fund.

Powell, a retired Army general who has made a fortune by making
speeches, writing and serving on corporate boards, is worth, according
to his accounting, somewhere between $14.6 million and $65.5 million.

Donald L. Evans, former chief executive of Tom Brown Inc., an oil and
gas company, and a board member of TMBR/Sharp Drilling Inc., helped the
Bush campaign raise more than $100 million before he became commerce
secretary.

Evans, fifth in the financial ranking of Cabinet members, is worth
between $10 million and $47.4 million, according to his disclosure
statement. Evans has money market accounts each worth $1 million to $5
million at Petrie Parkman & Co. and Michael A. Steinberg & Co., and $5
million to $25 million in the Heritage Cash Trust Municipal Fund at
Raymond James Financial Services Inc.

There is a considerable drop in assets in the rankings after Evans. The
most affluent woman in the Cabinet is Elaine L. Chao, who, prior to
becoming secretary of labor, served on a number of corporate boards,
including Dole Food Co., Clorox Co., C.R. Bard Inc. and HCA Inc. Chao,
who is married to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), reported holdings of
$100,000 to $500,000 in two Vanguard funds and a Merrill Lynch
tax-exempt money market fund.

Other Cabinet members whose low-end estimates of their worth broke $1
million included Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson,
$1.5 million to $3.6 million; Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, $1.5
million to $3.3 million; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel R.
Martinez, $1.3 million to $3.2 million; and Veterans Affairs Secretary
Anthony J. Principi, $1.5 million to $2.8 million.