On Monday, pandering to her party’s left-wing that has always distrusted her close ties to Wall Street, Hillary Clinton, who made at least $200,000 per speech since leaving the State Department and is reportedly in the top one-hundredth of the 1%, attacked CEO pay in an email to supporters, saying that everyday Americans are struggling at a time “when the average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes.”
According to a Bloomberg report, in the 16 months since leaving the State Department, Clinton “earned at least $12 million” from speaking fees and book contracts. She reportedly made at least $200,000 a speech–the University of Buffalo reportedly paid $275,000 for Clinton to speak at an October 23 event. Bill Clinton, according to the report, has made at least $105 million in speaking fees alone (some speeches reportedly pay as much as $750,000) since leaving the White House. Bloomberg noted that Hillary’s “earnings represent a fraction of the Clinton family’s total income and yet were large enough to rank her not only in the top 1 percent of the nation’s earners but in the top one-hundredth of the 1 percent.”
Clinton was widely lampooned after she matter-of-factly declared that she was “dead broke” after her family left the White House. A Washington Post analysis of Clinton’s finances revealed how tone deaf her “dead broke” remarks were. According to the Post report, “tax returns Hillary Clinton released during her 2008 campaign show that the Clintons made $87.3 million in joint adjusted gross income between 2001 and 2006.” The Post also noted that “in 2010, then-Secretary Clinton’s financial disclosures revealed a net worth totaling between roughly $10 and $50 million” and “in 2012, the last year for which she disclosed finances, Clinton’s net worth was estimated to be between $5 million and $25 million,” which was the same range that she reported while she was in the Senate. The family’s “confirmed income between 2001 and 2012 was at least $136.5 million.”
Last decade, the Clintons also purchased a $1.7-million home in New York and a $2.85-million home in Washington, D.C. She recently told Univision’s Jorge Ramos in an interview in which she uncomfortably conceded that she was worth millions that her family would not be selling those homes in the near future.
Bloomberg News predicted that that progressives will “question how Clinton will appeal to working-class voters and serve as the party’s chief crusader against stagnant wages and the gap between rich and poor, given that she has received millions from financial firms and other corporations.” And Mother Jones, the left-wing magazine, did exactly that, writing: “Hillary’s for-profit speaking gigs raise a serious question for a possible presidential candidate: Is she being courted by and/or providing access to the well-heeled companies and industry groups—including Goldman Sachs, the Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the National Association of Realtors, and the US Green Building Council, among many others—that have paid her to speak?”
Clinton is blatantly trying to play the “income inequality”/”class warfare” card to appeal to President Barack Obama’s coalition and progressives who are yearning for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to primary her. Warren has hammered Wall Street and income inequality, which prompted even Warren Buffett to call her out for being “angry and demonizing.” Warren recently responded by asking, “Do you think if I smiled more at banking committee hearings that Wall Street would put me on their Christmas Card list? Give me a break.”
In her announcement video, Clinton said she wanted to be a champion for “everyday Americans.” She has vowed to meet with voters in smaller settings instead of large rallies, been traveling in her “Scooby van” and stopped by places like Chipotle (while wearing sunglasses indoors) in blatant attempts to seem “normal” and “in touch” with “everyday Americans.”
Obama and Democrats incessantly demonized Mitt Romney for representing the 1% in 2012, and it was a strategy that worked for the Obama campaign. Bloomberg News pointed out that the “annual U.S. mean wage for all occupations was $46,440 as of May 2013,” and in the 2012 election, exit polls found that among Obama supporters, 60% made $50,000 or less. Bloomberg noted that 41% of the 2012 electorate also made $50,000 or less.
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