Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is widely rumored to be the next Democratic presidential nominee come 2016. But in the meantime, she won’t be skimping on her earnings. Clinton will reportedly be pocketing $200,000 per speech, a tidy sum that should keep her pantsuits properly stocked for the next several millennia. The high-profile Harry Walker Agency will be repping the former First Lady and Chicago/New York-based Senator. Hillary’s sometime husband, Bill, reportedly averaged $189,000 per speech over 11 years. He’s given 471 of them at that hefty price, which would add up to some $89 million.

The big question: why do the Clintons need all that money? Why can’t they go without for the sake of the children? Why, that $89 million could pay for an entire year’s worth of federal spending on the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation Program! Or perhaps an entire year’s worth of California state spending on advertising to tell Americans about the glories of Obama’s health care exchanges!

Or, perhaps, Hillary could donate some of her future earnings to the families of the men murdered in Benghazi.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).