Personal Finances

Top Assets, 2006

Select a year:
2006 2005 2004

All House Senate Executive Congress - both House and Senate Democrats Republicans

Rank	Firm	Minimum Value	Average	Maximum Value
1	Financial Guaranty Corp	$50,000,001	$50,000,001	$50,000,001
2	Greene Properties	$25,000,001	$37,500,000	$50,000,000
3	Clear Channel Communications	$11,468,205	$33,760,701	$56,053,198
4	Front Range Capital Corp	$10,100,003	$30,175,001	$50,250,000
5	Procter & Gamble	$8,737,884	$25,340,855	$41,943,847
6	Processed Foods Corp	$6,000,002	$18,000,001	$30,000,000
7	Walgreen Co	$5,705,444	$16,128,936	$26,552,434
8	Trinity Industries	$5,190,081	$15,190,080	$25,190,080
9	US Bank (US Bancorp)	$5,050,002	$15,075,000	$25,100,000
10	Watermark Properties	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	VB Investments/Pointe West	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	VB Motor Yachts	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Tiffany Manor	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Rehberg Ranch Land & Livestock	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Rehberg Ranch LLC	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Smith Frozen Foods	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Jamatt Properties	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Lighthouse Toyota	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Gillmor Financial Services	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Grayling Industries	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	1299 LC	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	201 021 22, 201 032 01, 200 051 42 & 200	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	600 LC	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Aircraft Holding & Leasing LLC	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000
10	Apartment complex	$5,000,001	$15,000,000	$25,000,000

This table lists the 25 biggest assets of businesses, real estate, stocks and corporate bonds. It does not include cash, blind trusts, bank accounts, mutual funds or other diversified financial instruments.

Note: Senate, House and Executive branch rules require the disclosure of items belonging to the filer’s spouse and/or dependent children. When present, those items are displayed on this page and are included in all calculations throughout this section.

Lobbying Database

In addition to campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Some special interests retain lobbying firms, many of them located along Washington's legendary K Street; others have lobbyists working in-house. We've got totals spent on lobbying, beginning in 1998, for everyone from AAI Corp. to Zurich Financial.

You can use the options below to search through our database in four ways: search by name for a company, lobbying firm or individual lobbyist; search for the total spending by a particular industry; search for the total spending by lobbyists on a specific issue; or view the amount spent to lobby a particular government agency.

Total Lobbying Spending

1998 $1.45 Billion 1999 $1.44 Billion 2000 $1.54 Billion 2001 $1.63 Billion 2002 $1.81 Billion 2003 $2.04 Billion 2004 $2.17 Billion 2005 $2.41 Billion 2006 $2.60 Billion 2007 $2.82 Billion 2008 $1.58 Billion

Number of Lobbyists

1998 10,689 1999 13,674 2000 12,664 2001 11,986 2002 12,264 2003 13,067 2004 13,324 2005 14,445 2006 15,462 2007 15,731 2008 16,982

Lobbying Database

In addition to campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Some special interests retain lobbying firms, many of them located along Washington's legendary K Street; others have lobbyists working in-house. We've got totals spent on lobbying, beginning in 1998, for everyone from AAI Corp. to Zurich Financial.

You can use the options below to search through our database in four ways: search by name for a company, lobbying firm or individual lobbyist; search for the total spending by a particular industry; search for the total spending by lobbyists on a specific issue; or view the amount spent to lobby a particular government agency.

Total Lobbying Spending

1998 $1.45 Billion 1999 $1.44 Billion 2000 $1.54 Billion 2001 $1.63 Billion 2002 $1.81 Billion 2003 $2.04 Billion 2004 $2.17 Billion 2005 $2.41 Billion 2006 $2.60 Billion 2007 $2.82 Billion 2008 $1.58 Billion

Number of Lobbyists

1998 10,689 1999 13,674 2000 12,664 2001 11,986 2002 12,264 2003 13,067 2004 13,324 2005 14,445 2006 15,462 2007 15,731 2008 16,982

The Office of Inspector General’s report details scrutiny of a program known as Comprehensive Error Rate Testing, or CERT, that audits a sample of Medicare claims submitted by sellers of durable medical equipment. That program is supposed to randomly choose claims and review the medical records and other documents supporting submitted claims to determine whether payment is justified.

According to the inspector general’s report, officials at Medicare instructed AdvanceMed to disregard those policies. Instead, AdvanceMed was told to examine only the documents submitted by the companies selling the medical equipment, rather than verify those documents against physicians’ records.

Medicare reported to Congress that, for the fiscal year of 2006, AdvanceMed’s investigations had found that only 7.5 percent of claims paid by Medicare were not supported by appropriate documentation. But the inspector general’s review indicated that the actual error rate was closer to 31.5 percent.

For instance, according to the report, the Office of Inspector General examined a claim for an electric wheelchair that AdvanceMed had said was appropriate. The inspector general’s investigation revealed that the physician who was listed as having prescribed the wheelchair had no knowledge of the prescription.

The person who received the wheelchair said that he had never met with the physician, that he did not need a wheelchair and that he had never used it, according to the report. His wife had also received a wheelchair that she had not asked for and never used.

Equipment sellers can pocket more than $2,500 every time they send a powered wheelchair to a patient and bill Medicare.

“This is like letting the fox guard the henhouse,” said Malcolm Sparrow, a Harvard University professor who focuses on health care fraud. “The supplier has an incentive to supply fabricated documents or to imply that medical records support a purchase when they don’t. If you don’t ask the physician or ask for medical records, you can’t really verify anything.”