Hillary Clinton Blasts Pay For CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers In Campaign Kickoff

[Cali_Democrat]

WASHINGTON -- In her first campaign event Tuesday as a presidential candidate in the early caucus state of Iowa, Hillary Clinton blasted a system that puts the nation's top earners ahead of the middle class, lamenting that the "deck is still stacked in favor of those already at the top."

"There’s something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the typical worker. There’s something wrong when American workers keep getting more productive, as they have, and as I just saw a few minutes ago is very possible because of education and skills training, but that productivity is not matched in their paychecks," the former secretary of state said at a round-table at Kirkwood Community College in Monticello, Iowa.

"And there’s something wrong when hedge fund managers pay lower tax rates than nurses or the truckers that I saw on I-80 as I was driving here over the last two days," she added. "And there’s something wrong when students and their families have to go deeply into debt to be able to get the education and skills they need in order to make the best of their own lives."

Read more:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/15/hillary-clinton-ceos-hedge-fund-iowa_n_7069938.html

[TerrapinFlyer]

1. Sounds like a "progressive" statement to me...

I think I can get behind this idea.

[F4lconF16]

4. Don't fall for it.

Obama said a lot of things too. They are both corporate democrats, members of a political and economic elite that do not have the interests of the working class in mind. They are here to stabilize the system. FDR did the same in his time, only instead of being to the right of New Deal democrats, he was to the right of the socialists. FDR perpetuated the system and rescued it during one of the biggest crashes in American Capitalism; don't let Clinton or others do the same now. Radical change is the only way we are going to fix anything.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. FDR was a pretty good President IMO

He brought us great things like the WPA and Social Security.

I did disagree with him when it came to the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war.

But overall...a pretty good Democratic President.

[F4lconF16]

12. Yes, he was.

Especially in comparison to anybody now. But he was still a member of the elite, and kept a socialist revolution (peaceful or not) from happening. Many of the policies he instituted were designed to give just enough to just enough people in order to maintain the status quo. There was still huge numbers in poverty after him. I am not necessarily criticizing him, just using him as an example of the way the Democratic Party has historically allied itself against radical change.

[cloudbase]

2. (wink, wink) n/t

[yallerdawg]

3. And Warren doesn't have to waste...

her time and money on a primary.

They already worked it out!

[democrank]

5. Hillary Clinton made some very good points.

As a voter from the Populist Wing of the Democratic Party, I`m pleased with these remarks.

[Cosmic Kitten]

7. How much does she make per speech?

She makes more in one speech
than 3 or 4 average families
Words are not actions.

She profits handsomely
and is a benefactor of
the system she is
supposedly criticizing.

[still_one]

9. If Hillary said she wanted a cure for cancer I have no doubt she would

Be criticized by some

[Cosmic Kitten]

11. Even if she promised everyone a pony H8ers gonna H8

[still_one]

13. I do like the symbolic response you provided, but disagree with the

Cynical outlook

[still_one]

8. It is a positive comment, and no surprise that there will always be nay sayers

Damn if she does, dam if she doesn't as far as some folks on DU are concerned

How predictable

[Vincardog]

10. What is she proposing to do about it?

[Dragonfli]

15. One can imagine - but nothing else at this point, as far as I can tell /nt

[Dragonfli]

14. The fact is, that it is very good rhetoric and I agree with everything stated

I applaud the sentiment but find it hard to believe that anything will come of it beside perhaps some "calls" to raise the tax rate a few % on high earners without ever addressing the capital gains tax issues at the heart of much of this. At least not from a Rubin/Summers economics proponent,

I also see no ideas addressing her "concern" regarding the 300:1 earnings ratio - I guess (insert your plan to address this issue here) is my most appropriate response regarding that bit of rhetoric.

Good rhetoric, absolutely no substance.
I agree with the message, a good campaign strategy IMO to mirror rhetoric made popular by Elizabeth Warren.

If she means any of it I expect to see ideas on how she would go about making the big earners pay big taxes relative to the middle class earners she referenced as well as a plan to regulate or propose some other solution that would achieve a fairer CEO to typical worker ratio.

I hope to some day (and I know this is crazy dirty hippy talk) also, just once, hear her acknowledge, even in passing, that there is a huge bunch of poor people out here, a demographic growing rapidly, that are below the middle class.

Maybe even (dare I beseech the Goddess) propose plans to help the majority of us poor, disabled, and working impoverished as well as the middle and up (if you would please Hill)