Hillary Clinton has still not officially made her much-anticipated announcement that she is seeking the nomination as Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2016. We will never know, therefore whether pundits who criticized her for not having a “vision” were right in their presumption that her campaign slogan would be nothing more than “Vote For Hillary: She Has Lady Parts.”
Now two weeks after the release of her book “Hard Choices” and countless interviews, she has come up with a vision that would give rise to a new slogan: “Vote For Hillary: She’s Not That Rich and She Pays Income Taxes.”
In an interview with the UK paper the Guardian, the presumptive candidate once again delved into her personal finances:
America’s 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?
“But they don’t see me as part of the problem,” she protests, “because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we’ve done it through dint of hard work,” she says, letting off another burst of laughter. If past form is any guide, she must be finding my question painful.
Sure, the Clintons pay taxes, God bless them. They also take advantage of every loophole they can:
Bill and Hillary Clinton have long supported an estate tax to prevent the U.S. from being dominated by inherited wealth. That doesn’t mean they want to pay it.
To reduce the tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial planning strategies befitting the top 1 percent of U.S. households in wealth. These moves, common among multimillionaires, will help shield some of their estate from the tax that now tops out at 40 percent of assets upon death.
The Clintons created residence trusts in 2010 and shifted ownership of their New York house into them in 2011, according to federal financial disclosures and local property records.
Hillary Clinton wants America to understand that she is one of us. Everything she is going through is typical for the average American. Sure, she gets $100,000 every time she speaks before a crowd. Is that any big deal? When I was a kid my sister’s boyfriends would give me five dollars to stop talking and get out of the house. Same difference, no?
Don’t you think it was a hardship for Hillary when she moved out of the White House “dead broke” and was forced to struggle with the simultaneous purchase of two houses? I remember I once had to go into major debt just to build hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place. Sure it was Monopoly, but I can relate. Maybe I never got an $8,000,000 advance for writing a book, but once in high school I got an “A+” on an English paper and my parents took me out for a congratulation milk shake.
And you know what? I pay taxes too. Now, sure, I don’t have the kind of money or a team of high-paid accountants to finagle the sorts of tax shelters that Bill and Hillary get, but I take some of the standard deductions and even some other legal deductions. More importantly, I pay taxes, just like Bill and Hillary do every year.
You see, Hillary Clinton is just like us, and that’s why we should vote for her. Forget the fact that she was not a stand-out secretary of state, that she screwed up Benghazi, or that she messed up relations with Russia, Britain, and Israel. In 2008, we voted for someone with no experience. In 2016, we have the opportunity to vote for someone with experience — and a lousy record to boot. Hillary may have made lots of mistakes, but that’s another way in which she is one of us common folk. Everybody makes mistakes.
After two terms of Barack Obama, do we want to face another eight years of arrogance and “out of touch” leadership? Of course not. A vote for Hillary is a vote someone just like us … only more so!
Cross-posted at The Lid
