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It's no secret that Bill Clinton has made somewhere in the neighborhood of $250k per speech since he was president. This number doesn't surprise me. I'm surpr

It's no secret that Bill Clinton has made somewhere in the neighborhood of $250k per speech since he was president. This number doesn't surprise me. I'm surprised people want to hear what he has to say that much but I say if he can get that much, he should keep giving talks.

kmkemp 11y ago
It's not just the content, but his popularity and speaking ability.
tn13 11y ago
It is not content. It is about buying contacts. Bill makes some phone call that enables a meeting with someone somewhere which leaves you rich and you pay some kickback. This is blatant corruption by people who are supposedly fighting for poor.
- cromwellian 11y ago
  Kate Couric got $110,000 for a speech and she's a newscaster/anchor. I think you need to look at the broader market for paid speeches before you throw out such accusations. The Clintons were not born with silver spoons in their mouth, and they grew from modest origins to where they are today. I don't hold it against them that they're able to command such high speaking fees anymore than some musicians can command high prices for concerts, or actors can command high salaries for movie parts. The whole campaign to argue Hillary is corrupt hasn't really worked, and that's essentially what these kinds of articles are, an extension of the Sanders campaign argument. But her voting record is among the most liberal in Congress, more than her husband, more than Obama, it's more liberal than 82% of all congressional votes. (Susan Sarandon was on Bill Maher the other day and simply didn't want to hear the facts he raised about her voting record.) Clinton has a penchant for policy wonkishness that doesn't sit well with young impatient progressives who want to make a quantum leap from here to there. So for example, if one is for a $12 minimum wage first, instead of forcing the entire nation to $15 instantly, because one is worried about the effect of a 200% increase to say, Bob's coffee-shop in Nebraska, one get's raked over the coals. Why is it so hard to understand there's a huge cost of living difference in SF/NYC vs other states and a federal minimum wage quantum jump like that should be done cautiously? If one is for fracking as a temporary bridge, because natural gas is cleaner than coal and releases less CO2 if your regulate methane leakage and protect ground water, as well as sending less money to regimes which spread Wahhabism with the money, then of course, you're really just a neo-liberal owned by the Kochs. But is it realistic to ban fracking and coal and switch totally to renewables without a transition? You can't just be against something without a viable alternative. I agree with pretty much everything Sanders wants to do, but I want a realistic vision of how to accomplish it and a reasonable time span. I don't like the way anyone who wants to advocate an iterative, incremental approach is shouted down as an establishment sell out. There's too much guilt-by-association going on, and not enough realistic discussion of the nuanced policy choices we face.
  - tn13 11y ago
    You are mistaking political propaganda for economic arguments.
- GabrielF00 11y ago
  That's not how it works, or at the very least, it's a lot less black and white than that. There are enough people who will pay money to get a picture with Bill Clinton, or to hear Clinton speak, that it's completely worth it for an organization to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on his speaking fees. A number of years ago my Dad was involved with a healthcare non-profit organization that paid Bill Clinton $125,000 for a speech (I don't remember the exact figure). They had him speak at a big theater, where a couple thousand people paid $100+. Then they had him as the featured guest at a dinner, which cost donors thousands of dollars to attend. They also had him tour their organization with the media. So all told, the organization raised a few hundred thousand dollars and got a lot of publicity. Private sector companies - some big financial company or the National Association of Whatever - can get similar value from a Clinton speech. Maybe they can get money directly by selling tickets to a dinner with Clinton and having having him be the keynote speaker at their paid conference, or maybe they can use it as a reward/incentive for their clients (with the most important clients getting the most access to Clinton). [Edit: I looked up Clinton's fee, it was $125,000)
maxxxxx 11y ago
This is not about the speeches. It's about buying influence with well connected people.
Grishnakh 11y ago
If this were just some ex-President making a ton of cash for speeches, I really wouldn't care. The problem is that he's gunning for the White House, as "First Dude" (or whatever the title will be; we've never had one before). Hillary constantly uses her experience as First Lady as political experience, and basically touts it as equivalent to VP or more. Similarly, if Hillary wins, Bill isn't going to just sit around the WH and screw interns (though he'll probably do that too), he's going to be using it as a political office, just like she did, and he'll use his position as her husband to influence her. So these people paying "speaking fees" are really just practicing legalized bribery.
- frogpelt 11y ago
  First Gentleman?

kmkemp 11y ago

It's not just the content, but his popularity and speaking ability.

tn13 11y ago

It is not content. It is about buying contacts. Bill makes some phone call that enables a meeting with someone somewhere which leaves you rich and you pay some kickback. This is blatant corruption by people who are supposedly fighting for poor.

cromwellian 11y ago
Kate Couric got $110,000 for a speech and she's a newscaster/anchor. I think you need to look at the broader market for paid speeches before you throw out such accusations. The Clintons were not born with silver spoons in their mouth, and they grew from modest origins to where they are today. I don't hold it against them that they're able to command such high speaking fees anymore than some musicians can command high prices for concerts, or actors can command high salaries for movie parts. The whole campaign to argue Hillary is corrupt hasn't really worked, and that's essentially what these kinds of articles are, an extension of the Sanders campaign argument. But her voting record is among the most liberal in Congress, more than her husband, more than Obama, it's more liberal than 82% of all congressional votes. (Susan Sarandon was on Bill Maher the other day and simply didn't want to hear the facts he raised about her voting record.) Clinton has a penchant for policy wonkishness that doesn't sit well with young impatient progressives who want to make a quantum leap from here to there. So for example, if one is for a $12 minimum wage first, instead of forcing the entire nation to $15 instantly, because one is worried about the effect of a 200% increase to say, Bob's coffee-shop in Nebraska, one get's raked over the coals. Why is it so hard to understand there's a huge cost of living difference in SF/NYC vs other states and a federal minimum wage quantum jump like that should be done cautiously? If one is for fracking as a temporary bridge, because natural gas is cleaner than coal and releases less CO2 if your regulate methane leakage and protect ground water, as well as sending less money to regimes which spread Wahhabism with the money, then of course, you're really just a neo-liberal owned by the Kochs. But is it realistic to ban fracking and coal and switch totally to renewables without a transition? You can't just be against something without a viable alternative. I agree with pretty much everything Sanders wants to do, but I want a realistic vision of how to accomplish it and a reasonable time span. I don't like the way anyone who wants to advocate an iterative, incremental approach is shouted down as an establishment sell out. There's too much guilt-by-association going on, and not enough realistic discussion of the nuanced policy choices we face.
- tn13 11y ago
  You are mistaking political propaganda for economic arguments.
GabrielF00 11y ago
That's not how it works, or at the very least, it's a lot less black and white than that. There are enough people who will pay money to get a picture with Bill Clinton, or to hear Clinton speak, that it's completely worth it for an organization to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on his speaking fees. A number of years ago my Dad was involved with a healthcare non-profit organization that paid Bill Clinton $125,000 for a speech (I don't remember the exact figure). They had him speak at a big theater, where a couple thousand people paid $100+. Then they had him as the featured guest at a dinner, which cost donors thousands of dollars to attend. They also had him tour their organization with the media. So all told, the organization raised a few hundred thousand dollars and got a lot of publicity. Private sector companies - some big financial company or the National Association of Whatever - can get similar value from a Clinton speech. Maybe they can get money directly by selling tickets to a dinner with Clinton and having having him be the keynote speaker at their paid conference, or maybe they can use it as a reward/incentive for their clients (with the most important clients getting the most access to Clinton). [Edit: I looked up Clinton's fee, it was $125,000)

maxxxxx 11y ago

This is not about the speeches. It's about buying influence with well connected people.

Grishnakh 11y ago

If this were just some ex-President making a ton of cash for speeches, I really wouldn't care. The problem is that he's gunning for the White House, as "First Dude" (or whatever the title will be; we've never had one before). Hillary constantly uses her experience as First Lady as political experience, and basically touts it as equivalent to VP or more. Similarly, if Hillary wins, Bill isn't going to just sit around the WH and screw interns (though he'll probably do that too), he's going to be using it as a political office, just like she did, and he'll use his position as her husband to influence her. So these people paying "speaking fees" are really just practicing legalized bribery.

frogpelt 11y ago
First Gentleman?