Cheney's Income Dwarfs Bush's

W A S H I N G T O N, April 13, 2001 -- Vice President Dick Cheney may play second fiddle to President Bush, but tax returns show he earned nearly 50 times more in income than his boss last year.

Cheney and his wife Lynne paid a whopping $14.3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $36.1 million, according to a statement released today by the White House.

In comparison, the president and first lady Laura Bush earned small change. The Bush family earned $894,880, on which they paid $240,342 in income taxes. The bulk of those earnings came from interest earned on blind trusts. Serving as governor of Texas earned Bush $70,554.

Only $806,332 of Cheney's considerable income was actual salary from his role at the helm of the Halliburton Co., a multinational oil and gas services firm. Another $4.3 million came from bonuses and deferred compensation, but the bulk of his income was generated by the exercising of stock options.

Bush donated $143,300 to churches and charities. Of that, $75,000 came from royalties from his book, A Charge to Keep. Among the charities benefiting from Bush's donations were the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of America.

Cheney gave more than $7.8 million to charities, most of it in stock options. Three charities received donations from Cheney and his wife: Capital Partners for Education (a program that helps low-income students), George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates (the hospital that treats his heart condition) and the University of Wyoming.

Bush did not release his entire return, only the first two pages. Cheney released only a summary of his return, but not a copy of the actual document.