Have you ever wondered why the US$100 bill is sometimes called a “C-note”? Well, wonder no longer! Thanks to the recent release of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s tax returns we now know. They’re called C-notes because so many of them belong to the Clintons.
In fact, between 2000 and 2007 they raked in over $111 million (or 110,000 C-notes). Bill’s speaking fees made up the bulk of the windfall at about $52 million and their book deals accounted for another $40 million or so - not bad for a couple that reported a combined income of $358,000 in 1999. But so what? Does this make them bad people? Not at all, they were bad people long before they had any money. However, it does help the general public understand why someone would spend hundreds of millions of dollars (of other people’s money) to campaign for and win the presidency – there’s a ton of gold at the end of the rainbow. But let’s go back to 1998 for a moment, shall we?
Remember the “legal defense fund” (officially known as the Clinton Legal Expense Trust) set-up at the end of Bill’s second term? I do. Why? Because it was embarrassing to have a president with legal bills so vast (and self-inflicted) that he and his wife decided to solicit the American public to foot the bill. This particular example of the Clintons’ apparent inability to feel shame was outdone only when they were forced to return $28,000 worth of property they lifted from the White House. I bring this up because aside from the multiple $10,000 donors, most of the $8 million was raised through small donations (i.e. little old ladies to whom $50 would go a long way). Here’s my question: now that the Clinton’s have joined the top tenth of the top one percent of income earners, will they pay the money back?
Actually, let’s forget about those people for a second (God knows Bill and Hillary have). What about the dozens of staffers and “friends” of the Clintons whose lives were destroyed as a result of their associations? They either had to pay their resulting legal fees out-of-pocket or, get this, borrow the money (which for all of you from Arkansas means you have to pay it back). I wonder what, if any, restitution the Clintons made to them. Admittedly, this would be difficult if not impossible to determine. But if the rate at which many Clintonistas have publicly jumped ship is any indication, it’s reasonably safe to speculate that they have done nothing to mend fences and have no intention of paying back their debts (kinda like Hillary’s campaign).
An close friend of President Carter's recently summed it all up for us when he stated that the Clintons are “always there when they need you”. How true.
Randall H. Miller is an educator and blogger currently living in the Dominican Republic. He blogs daily at www.thecandidacy.com
