Posted on 04/07/2008 8:34:02 AM PDT by shrinkermd
The former, and perhaps future, first couple earned $109 million over the past eight years, putting them among the top .01% of taxpayers. Apparently the Bush years haven't been a Depression era for everyone. The bulk of the Clintons' income came from speech-making ($51.9 million) and book-writing ($29.6 million), and it's hard to begrudge their desire to cash in on the Presidency after toiling for so many years in public service. The Clintons are hardly unique in showing that in today's Washington you can do very, very well after you've done good.
...Mr. Clinton raked in as much as $15 million working as an adviser and rainmaker for billionaire financier Ron Burkle's Yucaipa firm. We're not sure what advice Mr. Clinton gave but it must have been fabulous. The former President also took in $3.3 million in consulting fees from InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta, who has also helped fund Mrs. Clinton's White House bid. These are not opportunities that fall into every American's lap.
...claiming $10.2 million in charitable giving over the eight years. Intriguingly, nearly all the donations went to the Clinton Family Foundation, which has disbursed only half the money. The Clintons can thus use the foundation for, er, strategic giving, such as the $100,000 it donated last year to a local South Carolina library – the day after Mrs. Clinton debated in that key primary state
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Campaign financing laws don't work because there are no laws that can create the utopia desired--that is, laws that make it unnecessary to rely on on individual morals. At the same time these campaign financing laws exagerate a false sense of egalitarian justice. Note, how the Clintons used a charitable trust to buy votes!
Burkle's firms are all off shore. (Cayman Islands I Think) Who knows where the money came from. What is known, is Burkle uses these 3 to shelter his efforts from public inspection and IRS plundering. In a way Clinton received untaxed money; his claim he paid taxes is true but Burkle had plenty left over after not paying taxes and not telling how the money was generated.
If Obama does not use this information in his campaigning, he lacks both political savvy and moral sense.
Ironically, all the bribes, kicjnabacks etc. aren't getting Hitlery in the WH. I find that amusing. If anything they are getting a taste of their own medicine. They are a despicable couple.
I don't think Hitlery should be complaining about the
“rich getting richer” or Bill stating
“he feels your pain”.
Like other Americans during this tax season, the Clintons have also had to endure the complexity of the tax code. Their 2006 return alone totaled 67 pages. While they can afford a smart accountant to sift through all those forms, would it be too optimistic to think Mrs. Clinton might be inspired by her tax experience to promote tax reform?
Alas, yes. Senator Clinton’s main tax proposal is to repeal the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, raising rates to the levels of the Clinton Presidency. “We didn’t ask for George Bush’s tax cuts. We didn’t want them, and we didn’t need them,” Mrs. Clinton explained.
There are a huge number of Americans who pay no income tax at all (in fact many actually get EIC back that they never paid) - most of them are Democratic voters.
And there are elites who are able to avoid taxes through various methods - like the Clintoons.
The rest of us are in tax hell. I’m too old to ever make it to elite status.
I’ll aspire to the underground economy after I retire from my career job.
BTW, I would be almost certain that she favors the full restoration of the federal estate tax as it was before 2001.
they say the rich pay the most taxes but I disagree....they hide most of their money in schemes.....I want to learn those schemes...I don't want to be an ordinary tax cheat but it is getting ridiculous...
We understand .... we live in NJ and pay over 25K in property taxes .... we don’t live in a “mansion” and we private school ... most of our property taxes go to public schools ... We understand ... .
Somehow it won’t apply to them.
I’d hate to know how many off shore accounts the Clintons have ... .
BINGO!!! Off shore accounts!!
I submit that the problem inherent to any tax structure created by a representative government is that the politicians, in order to appeal to voters, will create wedge issues, groupings, classes among the voters. These groupings will be used to create an “us” vs “them” mentality and ultimately, the tax structure will stop being a means of generating revenue and turn into a means of exercising political will.
I believe that the ONLY way you can delay, perhaps stop, this type of segmentation of the People is to create a constitutional amendment that says, in effect:
Neither Congress nor any jurisdiction subject to the laws of Congress, shall grant any relief from, or cause greater tax burden, by means testing on income, race, religion, sex, profession, culture, age, location, possessions, dependents, cost of living, or any other test so as to cause differentiation between the People.
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