About Half Of Clinton's Cabinet Are Millionaires -- Rubin And Bowles List The Most Assets In Annual Disclosure

WASHINGTON - About half the members of President Clinton's second-term Cabinet have assets of more than $1 million, according to annual financial-disclosure forms.

Designed to prevent conflicts of interest, the disclosures also serve as approximate net-worth statements. A review of filings for 1996, for instance, shows that Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Erskine Bowles, the president's chief of staff, are the wealthiest Cabinet members, while OMB Director Franklin Raines reported the most income, at least $12.8 million from his former job at the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, alone.

Rubin reported family assets, mostly in trusts, totaling more than $57 million and perhaps more than $80 million. The former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, an investment-banking firm, reported making $26.5 million in income from the firm in 1992 before he joined the administration.

Bowles needed 118 pages to list his family assets, which total at least $30 million and could be more than $60 million. (A range of values, rather than exact figures, are disclosed.)

Raines, who until last year was vice chairman of Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored private company that buys and sells home mortgages, reported assets of between $9.6 million and $35 million. He received $5.8 million listed as salary and "other compensation" from the company last year, as well as $5.9 million in income from exercising stock options and at least $1 million more from selling other company stock. He received $2.2 million in salary, bonus and long-term compensation from Fannie Mae in 1995.

When he joined the government, Raines said the Fannie Mae board was considering whether to give him certain unvested benefits. A Raines spokesman said this week that the OMB director estimated that "less than one-third" of the more than $12.8 million he collected from the company last year was compensation the board did not have to give him. The spokesman added that Raines has excused himself from considering matters related to Fannie Mae.

Eugene Carlson, a spokesman for the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the office that oversees Fannie Mae, said Raines's severance package was approved, but could not give any details.

Another Cabinet member, Commerce Secretary William Daley, also had a profitable connection to Fannie Mae. After Clinton passed over Daley for a Cabinet post in his first term, he appointed him to the Fannie Mae board. Daley reported collecting $24,814 in director fees in 1996 from the firm. He also listed deferred compensation and stock options from Fannie Mae worth between $215,000 and $500,000.

That was in addition to the $825,775 income and $400,000 severance payment he received from his Chicago law firm. Daley reported assets of between $1.2 million and $3 million.

Other officials of Cabinet rank who have at least $1 million in family assets include Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, Education Secretary Richard Riley and Janet Yellen, head of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Clinton's Cabinet has about the same ratio of "millionaires" as the president had in his first Cabinet.

The Cabinet members are generally more wealthy than the average American family. A recent Federal Reserve Board study of consumer finances found that the median net worth of an American family was $56,000 in 1995, although the immense wealth of some lifted the average to more than $200,000. For those making more than $100,000 per year, the median net worth that year was $486,000, while the average jumped to $1.5 million.