{"id":125997,"date":"2014-06-25T14:14:19","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T14:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=125997"},"modified":"2014-06-25T14:14:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T14:14:19","slug":"multi-millionaire-hillary-clinton-denies-part-truly-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/multi-millionaire-hillary-clinton-denies-part-truly-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Multi-millionaire Hillary Clinton denies she is part of the \u201ctruly well-off\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andre Damon<\/em><\/p>\n

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who together with her husband Bill Clinton has earned more than $100 million in speaking fees from corporations and business foundations, told the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0last weekend she was \u201cunlike\u201d the \u201ctruly well off.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the fifteen months since Clinton left office as Secretary of State, she has made over $5 million in speaking fees, putting her squarely within the top 0.1 percent of income earners.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton is seen as the most likely Democratic presidential nominee in the 2016 election, although she has not yet announced plans to run. TheGuardian<\/em>\u00a0write-up of Clinton\u2019s interview, noted, \u201cAmerica\u2019s glaring income inequality is certain to be a central bone of contention in the 2016 presidential election. But with her huge personal wealth, how could Clinton possibly hope to be credible on this issue when people see her as part of the problem, not its solution?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they don\u2019t see me as part of the problem,\u201d Clinton replied, \u201cbecause we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we\u2019ve done it through dint of hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Clinton\u2019s enormous wealth\u2013gained from \u201cspeakers\u2019 fees\u201d that are in reality little more than legally-sanctioned corporate bribes\u2013expresses the fraudulent character of the Democratic Party\u2019s pretensions to support social equality. This is a party of, by, and for millionaires and billionaires, all of whose efforts go to enriching the very wealthiest layers of society.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s statements were criticized by media commentators and, for their own reasons, her Republican political opponents. In subsequent days she struggled to answer reporters\u2019 questions about the disconnect between her supposed concerns for the everyday people and her own enormous personal wealth.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s comments came after she told ABC News earlier this month that she and her husband \u201ccame out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt.\u201d She added, \u201cWe had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea\u2019s education. You know, it was not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clintons own at least two houses, including one in Chappaqua, NY, that is worth about $7 million, and another in Washington, D.C., that is worth about $5.4 million, according to estimates from Zillow.com. The Clintons purchased both houses toward the end of Bill Clinton\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

In 1999 alone, the Clintons earned $416,039, according to their tax return. But the big money did not come until after the end of Bill Clinton\u2019s presidency, when the book deals and speaking fees started rolling in. In the first year after leaving office, the Clintons earned more than $16 million, more than the income of a typical CEO of a Fortune 500 company.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton was paid $8 million for her first book,\u00a0Living History<\/em>, which was published in 2003, and another $8 million for her new book,\u00a0Hard Choices<\/em>. Between 2000 and 20007 alone, the couple earned more than $109 million in speaking fees, NPR reported. Bill and Hillary Clinton each charge about $200,000 for a single appearance, four times the yearly income for a typical US household.<\/p>\n

Defending her acceptance of enormous speakers\u2019 fees earlier this month, Clinton told ABC in an interview, \u201cI thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people who leave public life do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill Clinton likewise defended his wife\u2019s comments in a discussion Tuesday with NBC\u2019s David Gregory in Denver, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t think most Americans resent somebody else doing well,\u201d adding, \u201cYou just have to be transparent and tell people the truth.\u201d He added, \u201csomeone is always trying to change the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Clintons have made more money than most US politicians, they are far from unique in being millionaires. In 2012, members of Congress had a median net worth of over a million dollars; the first time in history this has been the case.<\/p>\n

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for US president who famously declared, \u201cI\u2019m not concerned about the very poor,\u201d had a net worth of between $190 million and $250 million. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, famously could not remember how many houses he and his wife owned when asked in an interview. \u201cI think\u2013I\u2019ll have my staff get to you,\u201d he told\u00a0Politico<\/em>.<\/p>\n

John Kerry, the Democrats\u2019 presidential candidate in 2004 and the current US Secretary of State, has a family net worth of about $240 million, largely based on the inheritance of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is an heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune.<\/p>\n

Reprinted<\/a> with permission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andre Damon Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who together with her husband Bill Clinton has earned more than $100 million in speaking fees from corporations and business foundations, told the\u00a0Guardian\u00a0last weekend she was \u201cunlike\u201d the \u201ctruly well off.\u201d In the fifteen months since Clinton left office as Secretary of State, she has made over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-125997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-politics","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}