What Has Happened To Bill Clinton?
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHillaryDaily.com on May 7, 2015
I hardly recognized the Bill Clinton I saw in the Cynthia McFadden interview. The brilliant, agile, articulate politician we’ve watched for the past twenty-five years was nowhere to be found. In his place was a slow-speaking, frail-looking, short-tempered elderly man with the voice of Bill Clinton.What’s happened to him?His responses seemed painfully labored, his thinking muddled. There was an obvious difficulty and frustration in finding the right words. He seemed befuddled — his free floating stops-and-starts were jarring as he seemed to start to speak of ideas as they darted across his mind and then instantly stop in mid-sentence. It was painful to watch, much like watching an old-timer ball player in his late sixties struggle to execute plays he once did automatically.
The Bill Clinton in Africa appeared uncharacteristically rattled, unusually hesitant, particularly in the original video released on Monday morning. By evening, things had been cleaned up a bit.
Was it just exhaustion? Or has Bill Clinton unplugged lost his magic?
No one can stay on message better than Bill Clinton, but he was all over the place in the interview. Whatever message he had planned went out the window. He must have been prepped to answer McFadden’s question about the appearances of making $500,000 per speech. He had memorized some statistics about the global reach of the Clinton Foundation — that’s always been easy for him. But he fumbled badly when asked unscripted, but easily anticipated questions. At first, he seemed to be groping for the words to say that making money is the American way. Then, sensing how inappropriate that would sound, he shifted to the ridiculous argument: “I gotta pay my bills.”
Would anyone believe that he was living from $500,000 paycheck to the next $500,000 paycheck?
This certainly was not a prepared sound bite. And most likely his claim that everybody makes mistakes on their taxes — as the Foundation did for seven years — wasn’t polled before he threw it out.
The former president seemed to hide behind the optics of needy children as he justified his massive income. But all the arguments about how giving money to the Foundation helps poor people fall apart when we realize how much of the money goes into his pocket and her pocketbook.
Even in his interactions with the disadvantaged children that his Foundation helps, Bill Clinton moved slowly, glowing in a great-grandfatherly way at their accomplishments and accepting their thanks, a half smile implanted surgically on his face.
The biggest — and saddest — impression that comes across is one of extreme frailty. This in a big man once so filled with vigor. At one point in 1995, in frustration, I seized his arms and shook him, trying to shake out the sense of gloom and defeat that enveloped him after losing Congress. Now I’d fear that he’d fall apart if I shook too hard.
No longer do his arms chap at the air as he makes his points. Now gravity and their own weight sort of bring them down. He doesn’t stride anymore. He shuffles. He makes weird faces as his rage slips through. He’s not on top of his game.
The former president is 68– that’s not so old. But his health issues and his reduced stamina make him appear so much older.
Maybe he just needs to rest. And maybe his rage at the accusations about his Foundation sent him reeling. But whatever was behind his atrocious performance, it didn’t help his wife’s cause. Not at all.
In a bizarre interview with Cynthia McFadden on NBC, Bill Clinton gave a weird variation of Hillary’s “we were dead broke” gaffe. In response to a question about whether he would continue his $500,000 speaking fees, even if Hillary was elected President, Bill insisted that he definitely would because “I gotta pay the bills.”
Sounding like he was living from paycheck-to-paycheck in order to support a large family with lots of kids to feed and educate, he actually said this with a straight face.
But consider what bills he has to pay. Or better yet, start with what he doesn’t have to pay. The Clintons like to pretend they’re just like the rest of us, but they’re not. Here’s why:
What Taxpayers Pay For The Clintons
First, eliminate the need for buying any cars, since his and her state-of-the-art SUV’s are provided by the tax payers — along with their secret service protection. (Cross off $75,000 each for those vehicles.) That also means no insurance, no maintenance, no tolls, no parking, no registration and no automobile taxes. That’s a big chunk that comes right off the top.
And it extends to family members, too. When Chelsea Clinton left the hospital after the birth of her daughter, shiny twin black SUVs awaited the happy family — courtesy of the taxpayers.
The round-the-clock Secret Service agents drive the Clintons wherever they want to go — anywhere, any time. No need to pay for 24/7 chauffeurs.
Parking isn’t a problem, either. Charge it to the Secret Service — it’s all on us.
All other travel is either arranged through the Clinton Foundation or paid for by the hosts of their speaking engagements. According to The Washington Post, the Clinton Foundation is always looking for a multimillionaire or billionaire to lend them a plane. Don’t expect them to pay for anything. That’s out of the question. And after all of the free flights, the Secret Service is there to pick them up — here and abroad.
Then there’s health insurance. No problem. They are eligible for insurance subsidized at 72% by the federal government. Last year, the federal subsidy for Bill Clinton was $12,000, leaving about $4000.00 for him to pay. If the Clintons don’t want to pay that minimal amount, they are likely eligible for free coverage from the foundations.
Again, no sweat.
Most of their staff is paid for by the Foundation or by Bill’s $441,996 taxpayer subsidy for office rent. Another $500,000 a year for staff and additional expenses was paid. That’s almost a million dollars in subsidies paid by all of us.
Their only daughter is thirty-five and has finally finished her education, so no issue there. She doesn’t live at home, of course. So college tuition is one more category to eliminate.
Here’s An Estimate Of The Millions They Make
Imagine that your joint family income was between $20 – 30 million last year. That’s a modest estimate of what Bill and Hillary Clinton made. Her book deal was estimated to be $14 million and she earned about $3 million in speeches. Bill earned several million from business interests, back royalties and probably his usual $10,000,000 in speeches. Add Bill’s 201,000 federal pension, his Arkansas pension that Hillary disclosed as worth $15-$50,000, as well as Hillary’s federal pension of about $20,000 per year. Then there’s social security for both of them — another $5,000 a month that they are eligible for.
And then imagine that, with all that income, your only fixed expenses were a mortgage, homeowners insurance, 25% of a health insurance premium, electricity, real estate taxes, food, home maintenance, state and federal taxes, trash pick-up, clothing, and household help.
Not bad, right?
The Clintons own two homes worth a total of almost $10 million. There is one mortgage on the New York home for between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000. The D.C. home is owned free and clear. According to their last publicly available tax return in 2006, they paid $158,907 in mortgage interest and $84,501 in real estate taxes. The taxes and $53,00 of the mortgage interest is deductible. That’s probably about the same now.
Their major other expenses are associated with the costs of making a lot of money and living a luxurious lifestyle: federal and state taxes, commissions on speeches, etc.
Bill paid about $1 million in commissions and $66,153 for speech related expenses. That’s the price of getting the multimillion dollar speeches — about a 10% fee. It pays for the lifestyle. And Bill also paid about $43,000 in legal expenses — wonder what that was all about.
One big expense is the reported $100,000 cost of renting a vacation house in the Hamptons. That’s a must. You have to keep up appearances and there’s no better place than next door to Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein.
The Clintons don’t eat home too often, so their food bill isn’t going to break them. And they never deduct a dime for entertainment — that’s likely paid for by the Foundation. And, of course, other people also foot the bill in restaurants. That’s what friends are for.
Household help is another expense. It goes with the territory.
One other expense seems to be the expensive jewelry that Hillary wears every day. Or were they gifts?
So even assuming that taxes and an expensive lifestyle ate up almost half of their income, that would still leave about $15 million on a $30 million income.
That should cover the bills that Bill’s “gotta pay.”
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