Public office=$$$$$$$$
ABC did a little rundown of people who get enormous speaking fees in July 2014.
Donald Trump led with $1.5 million.
“The Donald earned a staggering $1.5 million per speech at The Learning Annex’s ‘real estate wealth expos’ in 2006 and 2007,” according to Forbes. “Trump appeared at 17 seminars and collected this fee for each one.”
Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Timothy Geithner all came in at 200k.
W gets 150k.
Since leaving office, the former president has made more than $15 million in speaking fees, apparently charging between $100,000 and $150,000 per speech, according to Yahoo News.
Being president turns out to be a nice little earner.
Condoleezza Rice gets 150k. Larry Summers, 135. Al Gore and Sarah Palin, 100.
Chelsea Clinton gets 75k, which is just weird.
Colin Powell and Madeline Albright get 50k – which sounds modest after the huge fees gobbled up by the big names, but in reality is a hell of a good hourly wage.
I love this site, Ophelia’s thoughts and her fight for what’s right, the commenters thoughtfulness and range of opinions and loyalty to actual evidence.
So, please (PLEASE!) don’t follow the rest of the world into the evidence-free Clinton bashing. I’m old enough to remember when this meme started that she’s a calculating virago lying her way to the top. It was Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s when she didn’t limit herself to arranging flowers in the White House.
What particularly enraged the Republicans was her large-elements-of-single-payer health plan. It forced them to come up with Heritage-care, just to prove they had a plan, which eventually became Obamacare. Now a lot of the country has come around to her 1993 view. But she doesn’t get any credit for it.
It’s been going on so long, the meme has settled into a solid, factoid-looking substrate. It’s an illusion. She’s no worse than any good politician, and she’s way better than most of them.
Speaking fees. Fine. She got walloping great speaking fees. The real question is whether she did something for the money. Did Goldman buy her? While she was Secretary of State did they get contracts they wouldn’t have got without her? While she was Senator was she particularly helpful to their agenda? It doesn’t look much like it. When she was running, just after the crash in 2008, she had a detailed proposal to help homeowners that would have involved forgiveness of underwater mortgages and all sorts of other things that would have cost banks actual money. It became so important to them to keep her out of the White House that most of the Big Finance money went to Obama.
Likewise with her health care reform proposals and their single-payer-public-option awfulness. Most of the Big Health money went to Obama.
When it comes to gun control, the NRA is appalled at her advocacy. They fund Sanders however, and — noteworthy! if you want to keep your eye on what the money actually buys — he has supported their agenda in the Senate. Not as well as a Republican, but well enough for a non-Republican.
But, but, but some of his money comes from small donations by the pure of heart! True, but that’s at least partly because the big money can’t be bothered because he’s not terribly effective. In his 30 or so years in the Senate, he’s put forward three bills. And two of those were to rename Vermont post offices.
So he talks a good line about changing everything from top to bottom, but while he’s been in the Senate he can’t even be said to have nibbled at the edges.
With politicians watch what they do, not what they say. Hillary has kept slugging away helping people, like the children’s health care program (CHIP?), like all the work for the disadvantaged that she did besides the actual job of diplomacy as SOS, like right now helping downticket Dem races (unlike Bernie I might add), like helping the city of Flint with its lead pipes. The list goes on forever.
But somehow she gets no credit for it. Everybody’s all about what Bernie says. Why is that? Helping people is just what women do? And when Clinton gives impassioned speeches, she “shouts” as per Joe Scarborough. And when she doesn’t “shout” she’s boring and nobody’s “excited” about her as per the NYTimes. Enough already.
Could we keep it real here, of all places, and not go down that sexist road again?
Chelsea Clinton earns 75k for giving a speech? What on earth does she talk about? I mean, she does hold a PhD in international relations, but it’s a rather freshly minted one, and she’s not considered to be a scholar with great technical knowledge. This seems to just be a matter of name recognition. How very annoying. Celebrity status converted to income.
quixote – well I don’t think that’s what it is. I would say that, wouldn’t I, but nevertheless I do.
I’m plenty old enough to remember the whole Clinton administration, vividly. I was optimistic for a few months (two? three? not many), but then it became ever clearer how beholden they were to the richest lobbyists.
I don’t like the stranglehold of money on politics. I never have. This isn’t a new thing.
Yes, let’s not go down any sexist roads here. Let’s also not go down the fact-free road quixote seems to have gotten themself four flat tires on regarding Sanders.
It’s astonishing the degree to which people calling themselves progressives will support the blatant bribery that is exorbitant payment for a 45-minute speech.
“Nibbling at the edges.”
quixote @ # 1: [H Clinton’s plan] forced them to come up with Heritage-care …
No, the visibly wretched state of existing US health care did that.
Did Goldman buy her?
No need: they bought her husband, and she came along in the bundle.
In [Sanders’s] 30 or so years in the Senate…
Bernie Sanders first entered the Senate in 2007, fyi.
Nice try. But …
My bet is that it’s just name recognition pure and simple. The amounts are trivial relative to what is paid for real political influence through things like superPac contributions etc. And there’s no need for personal bribes as celebrity of almost any not-totally-negative kind guarantees a lifetime income – either through advertising (often with an inconveniently exclusive contract though), or through public speaking if you want to keep more (apparent) freedom. And it’s not what’s in the speech that counts, but just having a prestigious name on the marquee. So I think that’s why she laughed. The idea of someone with the her kind of earning power being bribable or influenceable by such tiny amounts really is pretty silly.