Bill Clinton’s Cash Cow Crunch
April 11th, 2008
By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor
A $420,000 phone bill? 3.2 million for office rent? As the Politico points out, those are just a few of the bills that William Jefferson Clinton has run up since leaving the White House. “Well,” I can hear you saying, “the Clintons have made more than $100 million in the last seven years. I’m sure he can afford it.” Yes, he probably could have. But the fact is, you - the taxpayer - actually footed the bill on those costs.
The price tag for Clinton’s federal retirement allowance from 2001 through the end of this year will run $8 million, compared to $5.5 million for George H. W. Bush’s and $4 million for Jimmy Carter’s during the same period.
Since 2001, Clinton has received more of almost every benefit available to former presidents — from his pension to his staff’s salaries and benefits to supplies.
That’s a pretty sweet deal, but there’s nothing illegal going on here. These are just some of the perks you get for being a retired president. The fact that Clinton ran up a tab in excess of the other surviving presidents combined during that period doesn’t make it any less legal. But anything Bill Clinton does these days will be perceived as being tied to his wife, still in the midst of a hotly contested presidential primary. And in politics, perceptions all too often trump reality.
This election season finds us in the midst of an economic slump with voters increasingly finding themselves without jobs or receiving stagnant wages, seeing foreclosures on homes and facing sticker shock every time they show up at the pump to gas up the family car. If you are trying to win over the hearts and minds of regular, working class Americans, this might not be the best time to reveal your own massive, personal wealth while letting those voters know that your husband is letting them pick up the check for millions of dollars in expenses.
To be fair, none of these financial items are things for which the Clintons should apologize. As an ex-president Bill Clinton can (and does) command very large speaking fees around the world, so why would he not? The perks mentioned above - and others - are offered to and enjoyed by all former presidents, though perhaps not on the grand scale grabbed up by Bill. And both of the Clintons seized the opportunity to cash in on very lucrative deals to write books. Is that a bad thing? (For any of you publishers reading The Moderate Voice, my own manuscript, “Jazz Shaw: My Life Where Nothing Terribly Interesting Happens” is still up for grabs.) It should also be noted that none of these expensive perks for Bill Clinton go toward Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. (She just dips into her own checkbook for $5 million dollar loans for that.)
No, this is not a story of scandal or criminal activity. It is, again, a portrait in perceptions. While none of the candidates are exactly paupers, the emerging theme of the Clinton family as vastly wealthy individuals with a husband still grazing on the fat of the taxpayers’ wallets is not helpful and will likely be pumped up by supporters of her opponents.
UPDATE: Over at Hot Air, our friend Ed Morrissey thinks it may be time to begin means testing the presidential retirement benefits program.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 5:02 am and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, 2008 Elections, Politics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
