He was a senator from 1972 to 2008. 36 years at $180k per year works out to about $6.8 million. Then another $1.9 million for 8 years at $235k as Obama's VP, plus 3 years getting $400k per year for another $1.2 million. That comes in at $9.9 million altogether.
Elsewhere, I found:
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President Biden is worth an estimated $9 million according to Forbes. Biden has been in public service for almost half a century (1973 - 2017; 2020 - to date). Yet, he made the bulk of his net worth during the four years he spent out of office (2017- 2021).
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And:
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Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, earned $22.5 million from 1998 to 2019, a tidy sum that at first glance works out to just over $1 million per year. Except that that’s not quite how it happened. The Bidens have earned three quarters of that money since Joe left his post as vice president in 2017, according to an analysis of their tax returns.
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I'd sure like to know what Biden was doing such that he made more money in four years out of office than 36 years in it. It seems unlikely that he suddenly became a great businessman. It also would be great to know why money from shell companies owned by Hunter Biden mysteriously end up in Joe's bank account.
The only way people get rich from politics is corruption. Let's look at a few examples of that.
Mobutu Sese Seko
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Mobutu was re-elected in single-candidate elections in 1977 and 1984. He spent most of his time increasing his personal fortune, which in 1984 was estimated to amount to US$5 billion. He held most of it out of the country in Swiss banks (however, a comparatively small $3.4 million was declared found in Swiss banks after he was ousted.). This was almost equivalent to the amount of the country's foreign debt at the time. In a speech that he delivered on 20 May 1976 in a football stadium in Kinshasa that was filled with some 70,000 people, Mobutu openly accepted petty corruption, stating: "If you want to steal, steal a little in a nice way, but if you steal too much to become rich overnight, you will be caught".
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Rod Blagojevich
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A federal grand jury in Illinois returned an indictment against Blagojevich and five other defendants on April 2, 2009. Blagojevich is the seventh Illinois Governor to have been arrested or indicted; and became the fourth, following Dan Walker, who was jailed from 1987 to 1989. As well as the allegations concerning the Senate seat, Blagojevich has also been charged with:
Attempting to extort the owners of the Tribune Company to fire Chicago Tribune editors who criticized the governor's handling of state affairs.
Abuse of power concerning release of US$8 million of state funds to Children's Memorial Hospital expecting to obtain a $50,000 campaign contribution.
Seeking graft in the form of $2.5 million in campaign contributions (through 2008) from companies and individuals who have received state contracts or appointments.
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Rafael Trujillo
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By 1937 Trujillo's annual income was about $1.5 million ($31 million in 2022); at the time of his death the state took over 111 Trujillo-owned companies. His love of fine and ostentatious clothing was displayed in elaborate uniforms and suits, of which he collected almost two thousand. Fond of neckties, he amassed a collection of over ten thousand. Trujillo doused himself with perfume and liked gossip. His sexual appetite was rapacious, and he preferred mulatta women with full bodies.
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Imelda Marcos
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During her husband's 21-year rule, Imelda Marcos ordered the construction of many grandiose architectural projects, using public funds and "in impossibly short order"– a propaganda practice,which eventually came to be known as her "edifice complex". She and her husband stole billions of pesos from the Filipino people, amassing a personal fortune estimated to have been worth US$5 billion to US$10 billion by the time they were deposed in 1986; by 2018, about $3.6 billion of this had been recovered by the Philippine government, either through compromise deals or sequestration cases.
Marcos and her family gained notoriety for living a lavish lifestyle during a period of economic crisis and civil unrest in the country. She spent much of her time abroad on state visits, extravagant parties, and shopping sprees, and spent much of the State's money on her personal art, jewelry and shoe collections – amassing 3,000 pairs of shoes. The subject of dozens of court cases around the world, she was eventually convicted of corruption charges in 2018 for her activities during her term as governor of Metro Manila; the case is under appeal. She and her husband hold the Guinness World Record for the "Greatest Robbery of a Government", putting Suharto of neighboring Indonesia at second.
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Suharto
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Investigations into allegations of corruption against Indonesian former president/dictator Suharto began immediately after his 32-year rule. In Global Transparency Report, made by Transparency International in 2004, he was ranked as the world’s most corrupt leader. The report accused Suharto of causing losses of US$15–35 billion for the Indonesian government.
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You get the idea. It's not hard to find examples of this stuff.
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