The GOP has it’s panties all in a bunch about the Clinton Initiative; where it’s getting donations from and what’s Bill giving away to get those donations. There is also a huge stink about Bill Clinton’s speaking fees that can reach half a million bucks. Let’s say that those figures are right. He makes a speech to some organization and they give him half a million bucks. Okay but what do we compare that too?
Some fat cat corporate big wig, that has done little or nothing but kiss the right asses, sits behind his desk, watches his company lose a billion bucks and gets a twenty million bonus. Does anyone deny that this guy exists? Of course not! They’re all over the place. The numbers are often a little smaller but in essence what corporate America does is reward failure and their executives ability to keep their noses to the party line.
Bill Clinton, actually accomplished something. He was the two-time president of the most important nation in the world and when he left office he left the country in better shape than any other president in modern history. Who’s worth their paycheck? Yeah, it’s a hell of a lot of money, but there’s only one Bill Clinton and if you want him, if you want his charisma on stage, his stature in your meeting room, his unquestioned intelligence dealing with your problem, or his ability to put people together in groups that work, that’s what it costs. And it’s a bargain, especially when you look at the useless skell that run most of our companies badly and are rewarded for it, far beyond any reasonable concept of compensation. So what are the Republicans whining about?
The Clinton’s have reported earning close to $30 million bucks in the last 16 months. That’s a lot of scratch. But they earned it; her through her book sales, him through speaking engagements. That’s as opposed to getting it as a bonus after crashing the company they were supposed to be leading, like Carly or many millionaires in this country. They paid a 30% tax rate as opposed to almost every millionaire and billionaire, many of whom don’t pay any taxes and a very few more than 17%.
There is one other point and that is that no one broke anyone’s arms to make them give Bill that much money. As opposed to many other rich people, the Clintons are obviously worth what they are getting paid no matter how ridiculous a sum it seems to the rest of us because their services are out there in an open market, not protected by lobbyists or rigged legislation. They aren’t making their money through subsidies, tax breaks or abusing their labor force. They are out there, Hillary through her book and Bill through his ability to charm a group of listeners, earning it.
But why is all this noise about how much they make being made? It’s simple. The Right knew that Hillary was going to come out swinging for the fences on the issues of leveling the financial playing field and helping those that needed help and they were right. Her speech on Saturday made it clear that here was a candidate that wanted to help America and its citizens. The Right’s concept in making all that noise about how much she and Bill were making was to blunt her attack on the corporate giants by saying, “look, she’s making just as much. How can you expect two such rich people to care about the poor and hard working.”
That’s true if you’re talking about a Republican like Romney. What the Right didn’t talk into account is that both Bill and Hillary came from simple roots. Neither inherited wealth from their parents, both knew how to survive in poor and lower middle class circumstances, and both understood what it is like to struggle against great odds and to not only survive but to triumph.
Yeah, the Republicans whine, but now they’re rich so why would they try to help the poor? That is such GOP thinking, F..k ‘em all, as long as I get mine. But leopards don’t change their spots. The history of Bill and Hillary before he was President and she was Secretary of State is all about them helping people who needed help. That certainly hasn’t changed with the Clinton Initiative, which is helping people all over the world. Getting rich hasn’t changed Hillary Clinton and all you had to do was listen to her speech on Saturday to understand that.
Hillary gets it. She sees where the problems are and she knows how to fix them. She brought up a very important little piece of history in her speech when she reminded us that, unlike the Republicans she knows how to bring people together. How unlike the Republican’s she knows, for the sake of the country, how to work with those who have defeated her
When Obama won his first Presidential election, Mitch McConnell, our current Senate Majority leader swore that keeping Obama from winning another election would be his only job from that point forward. He didn’t swear to join with Obama for the good of the country, he didn’t swear to put old differences aside and try to get the country that was deep in depression and war, back on the right track; no, he swore to keep the newly elected President from getting elected again and therefore wasted his four years in the senate, and all the money tax payers paid him by being an angry, spiteful child. When Hillary lost the primary election to Obama she stood up on her hind legs and acted like a grownup by accepting the post of Secretary of State in his cabinet and helping him to pull the country out of the Bush/Cheney quagmire. That’s how grownups act. That’s how patriots act. McConnell acted the way traitorous little vermin act. That’s the difference between Hillary and her GOP opponents. You vote for her, you’ll be helping the country; you vote for the Republicans, you’ll be helping only them. It’s that simple.