WASHINGTON Sen. Hillary Clinton excluded nearly $24 million of her husband's earnings from Senate financial statements from 2004 through 2006, capitalizing on rules that permit senators to limit disclosures of some of their spouses' income.</p><p>Her decision, while fully consistent with Senate rules and norms, delayed the release of financial information about former President Clinton's soaring income until the couple released their tax returns in early April, under pressure from Democratic presidential rival Sen. Barack Obama. By then, about 40 states had completed their Democratic primaries and caucuses, meaning that those voters didn't get a clear look at Bill Clinton's finances.</p><p>Like Clinton, Obama listed his wife Michelle's salary and directors' fees only as "over $1,000," which complies with Senate rules. Obama and his wife, a Chicago lawyer, aren't as wealthy as the Clintons, however, and their finances are less murky.</p><p>GOP candidate John McCain's wife, Cindy, is the heiress to a beer distributorship and has owned stock in oil and pharmaceutical companies, but the specifics are elusive. McCain has declined to release his wife's tax returns, saying they keep their finances separately.</p><p>Watchdogs say these scenarios not only raise issues about the candidates' openness but that they also point to shortcomings in government ethics requirements.</p><p>Bill Buzenberg, the executive director of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, said that the disclosures by the Clintons and McCain were "inadequate."</p><p>"There's no other way to sugarcoat it," he said. "It's not transparent. It needs to be because it does potentially involve all kinds of entangling things we don't know."</p><p>The Clintons' tax returns show that Bill Clinton earned nearly $51 million from 2004 through 2006. His wife informed the Senate of about $27 million of it, consisting almost entirely of fees from his globe-trotting speaking tours, from which he has fetched as much as $400,000 for a single appearance.</p><p>Reporting rules for senators and presidential candidates allowed Hillary Clinton to describe the amounts of her husband's other income sources as "over $1,000." These included his more than $10 million in advances and royalties from two book deals, as much as $11.5 million from offshore partnerships that invested in a Chinese media company and more than $2 million from a Nebraska firm whose chairman reportedly spent $900,000 flying the Clintons aboard corporate jets for personal, business and campaign trips.</p><p>The sketchy disclosures on Clinton's statements might help explain why many Americans were surprised to learn, upon release of the couple's tax returns and a summary of their 2007 income, that they earned $109 million over the last eight years after leaving the White House buried in debt in 2001.</p><p>Jay Carson, a spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign, said that like Obama, Clinton "reported all of her spouse's income in accordance with Senate ethics requirements, which are clearly spelled out." The rules require less information about spouses' income.</p><p>On at least three occasions in February, however, Clinton campaign officials reassured the public that her Senate disclosure forms offered a sufficient look into her finances.</p><p>"She has released, as part of the financial disclosure process as a senator, sources of her revenue every year she has been in office," Phil Singer, a campaign spokesman, told the Christian Science Monitor.</p><p>Obama was the first candidate to release a tax return, making public his 2006 filing early last year and stating that he wanted to set a new standard for openness.