Prior to listening to The Daily Show yesterday, I hadn't heard Paul McNulty's excuse for resigning as Deputy Attorney General. I had assumed he fed the press some line about "spending more time with the family, yatta, yatta, yatta."
Instead, Mr. McNulty stated that his reason for leaving was:
"The financial realities of college-age children and two decades of public service lead me to a long overdue transition in my career"
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Oh, well that makes sense. He needs to be a partner at a K Street law firm in order to be able to afford to put his kids through college.
So I googled the CNN article and, in a bit of actual reporting on the part of CNN, they listed how much the DAA makes.
A source close to McNulty told CNN that the deputy attorney general had planned to resign from the $165,000-a-year job about a month ago, but decided to announce the move at a conference of U.S. attorneys in Texas.
Read that again. Does that say $165,000 per year? He can't put a kid(s) through college on a $165,000 a year job. So that was his wife I saw on the street in the taco suit - text messaging must be killing their household income too.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Mr. McNulty (assuming his Dept. of Justice salary is the sole income for the household, excluding spousal income, investment income, etc.), makes more than approximately 94% of America's working HOUSEHOLDS (that, in many cases, includes 2 or more incomes).
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in 1999, over 15 million people were enrolled in college. That is approximately 1 college student for every 15 people in the U.S. labor force. (Sorry for the 7 year old figures, but I couldn't find any more up-to-date. One can only assume that there are at least that many college students now).
I'm no mathematician, but I suspect by the sound of these numbers that most other people are managing to send their children to college on something less than $165,000 per year.
Mr. McNulty, if you're gonna lie to us, go ahead and do it. We know you are. But, do you have to kick the rest of Americans while they are down? Is the hatred of poverty and the poor so ingrained in your Republican brain that you can't help but show disdain for people that don't play golf at country clubs, even when you are facing, what might likely be your personal career low-point?
You've already, most likely, broken the laws of our nation and pissed all over the Constitution. This is just salt in a very deep wound.