Clinton's Charity Only Spends 10% of Its Billions on Actual Charity

It does seem to spend an awful lot of money on "other" expenses, and lots of money for Clinton travel.

Clinton Upkeep is apparently the "charity's" main point. Indeed, it has long been alleged that this "charity" has always been chiefly a way to keep Hilary's Government-In-Waiting on her payroll through 2000's, until she could put them all on the official government payroll again.

If you take a narrower, and more realistic, view of the tax-exempt group’s expenditures by excluding obvious overhead expenses and focusing on direct grants to charities and governments, the numbers look much worse. In 2013, for example, only 10 percent of the Clinton Foundation’s expenditures were for direct charitable grants. The amount it spent on charitable grants–$8.8 million–was dwarfed by the $17.2 million it cumulatively spent on travel, rent, and office supplies. Between 2011 and 2013, the organization spent only 9.9 percent of the $252 million it collected on direct charitable grants.

Sean Davis goes through a very steep drop-off in actual charitable expenditures, and concludes:

In just a few short years, the Clinton's primary philanthropic project transitioned from a massive player in global pharmaceutical distribution to a bloated travel agency and conference organizing business that just happened to be tax-exempt.

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey reports that the head of the Sunlight Foundation calls the Clinton "charity" a "slush fund."

The Sunlight Foundation -- a charity watchdog -- sees the Clintons' charity as mainly a charity for the Clintons.

As Jon Gabriel of Ricochet told us on our award-winning podcast*, another charity watchdog-- Charity Navigator -- simply refuses to give the Clinton Fund For Political Ambition any rating at all, because:

We don't evaluate Bill Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Why not? We have determined that this charity's atypical business model cannot be accurately captured in our current rating methodology.

Many people continue spinning this by claiming that Bill and Hilary don't take a salary from the initiative.

But this is bullshit.

First-class air travel paid for by the charity? Luxurious offices? Constant meetings with major political donors?

This is like claiming that the White House itself is not a luxury for the occupant to enjoy, simply because the serving president doesn't own it.

No, but he controls it during his presidency, and has the sole beneficial use of it.

Similarly, the Clintons' billion dollar "charity" provides them with dozens of workers who arrange anything they might like, swank offices, frequent fundraising and networking opportunities, and first class travel accommodations to wherever the Clintons' personal political ambitions might required them this week.

It's ridiculous to claim that the Clintons don't profit from this.

To be honest, if you could have the use of a billion-dollar organization and all its luxe appointments without actually owning it, so much the better for you: Then you get all the benefit of that organization without having to pay taxes on it.

posted by Ace at 01:55 PM

| Access Comments