Barack Obama. (photo: Susan Walsh/AP)
Faint Praise for Barack Obama's Embrace of Wealth
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
03 May 17
If the Obamas arent living the American Dream, then who is?
Now they are offering the man $400,000 for making just one 60-minute speech
(and another $400,000 for a 90-minute speech). That $400,000 is more than
twice the average net worth of most Americans at their wealthiest ($194,226
in 2011, mostly in the worth of a home). A Credit Suisse survey in 2014 put
Americans average net worth at a whopping $301,000, still well below what
rich people will pay for a one hour speech by a former president.
Even Obamas annual pension is more than what most Americans own (his
pension is $205,700 plus roughly $150,000 in perks). Speaking at a rate of
$400,000 per hour translates to $16 million for a forty-hour work week; even
if the speech takes a day to prepare, thats still $2 million a week. An
annual household income of $450,000 puts you in the top one percent. It
takes an income of almost $150,000 to be in the top ten percent. Most
Americans dont even dream of a payday in the millions.
Why shouldnt he go for it? That $400,000 speech is almost as much as his
taxable income in 2015 ($436,035, from publicly released tax returns). In
2015, the Obamas paid $81,472 in federal income tax, more than Americans
average annual household income of $55,775). Citizen Obama is already way
richer than 90% of his fellow citizens (and almost all Kenyans probably), so
why shouldnt he try to increase that gap between himself and the
hoi-polloi? At the same time why shouldnt he be trying to narrow the much
more gigantic gap between himself and his mega-rich play-pals, like Richard
Branson (net worth over $5 Billion) or David Geffen (net worth over $7
Billion). Barack and Michelle Obama together have a net worth of only $24
million or so, up from a mere $8 million when he became president. Or to put
it in perspective, when he became president, Obama was already in the top
one percent of wealthiest Americans.
None of this is meant to suggest that the Obamas are doing anything wrong in
the way they are living their post-White House lives, insofar as we know. At
least hes not crying poor the way Hillary dead broke Clinton did when
departing Pennsylvania Avenue. Nor has he been smarmily coy like
then-Presidential multi-millionaire Bush telling The New York Times that, in
retirement, Ill give some speeches, just to replenish the ol coffers.
In fairness, it should go without saying that, in the White House, President
Obama was probably, on balance, preferable to his most recent predecessors,
and is still a notch above the current incumbent. That said, Obamas
presidency was mostly an ineffectual limp rag of minimal horror that looks
good mainly in contrast to the glaringly worse high crimes and misdemeanors
of others. Theres no good reason he shouldnt cash in in the same ways his
less worthy predecessors have. Obama fits quite comfortably into the cliché
of useless, self-regarding ex-presidential lifestyle to which the only
recent arguable exception is Jimmy Carter.
Responding to Obamas acceptance of the traditional emoluments of
out-of-office, the flusterings of the twitterati have often portrayed
themselves as shocked, shocked to find that theres post-presidential
enrichment going on (but they express that shock with none of the patent
irony of Captain Renault in Casablanca). The moral fatuity of these
nattering nabobs of nonsense is nothing new, it has long been the ruling
classs farcical manner of flattering itself that it has actual principles
beyond just having more. The last few minutes of a Bill Maher clip
illustrate the dominant mind bubble, where only billionaire Nick Hanauer
reveals any sense of the greater good, wishing Obama had spent time building
houses for Habitat for Humanity and identifying wealth disparity as tearing
the country apart. The three show biz millionaires at the table dont even
acknowledge either point.
But then theres Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both of whom seem to
be running for president in 2020.
Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts and former Harvard Law
School professor, said on SiriusXM, referring to news of Obamas $400,000
speaking fee:
I was troubled by that
One of the things I talk about in the book [This
Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class] is the
influence of money. I describe it as a snake that slithers through
Washington and that it shows up in so many different ways here in
Washington
. There's more of us than there is of them. And we've got to use
our voices and our votes and fight back.
Warrens use of us is rather elastic, since she and her husband have a net
worth of roughly $8.75 million, enough to be at the bottom of the top one
per cent by wealth. The couples annual income of roughly $950,000 is well
within the top one percent. She received an advance of $525,000 for her
book, This Fight Is Our Fight.
Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and former congressman, told
CNN:
Look, Barack Obama is a friend of mine, and I think he and his family
represented us for eight years with dignity and intelligence. But I think at
a time when we have so much income and wealth inequality ... I think it just
does not look good
. It's not a good idea, and I'm sorry President Obama
made that choice.
Sanders is not among the top one per cent in wealth or income. He and his
wife have a net worth of roughly $1.6 million, putting them comfortably
within the top ten percent. The couples joint income of $205,271 in 2014 is
also well within the top ten percent. For all of that, Sanders does in fact
remain one of the poorer members of the United States Senate.
The point of all this has nothing to do with hypocrisy, which may or may not
exist in any of these examples. Whats truly troubling, what really does
not look good, is that, in retrospect, Obama now appears the consummate
huckster, a man whose gulls remain full of admiration for the man they fail
to realize has fleeced them from beginning to end with empty eloquence. And
now the dark joke is that those who benefitted most from all that empty
eloquence are willing to pay handsomely to hear more of it.
THAT should be troubling, yet few seem troubled by it.
And thats all you really need to know to understand why were where we are
now, no longer with a charm shark but with an unabashed con man as leader of
the free world: the richest president in our history, a user and abuser who
is richer than all prior presidents combined, a man whose wealth was not
built on actual slavery like Washingtons, but close enough by treating
people like slaves without even the obligation to feed or house them.
The idealized Obama would have might have led the resistance to
President Trump. But then the idealized Obama might have led the resistance
to Obamacare in favor of single payer, might have led the resistance to the
Honduran military coup in favor of democracy, might have led the resistance
to Saudi genocide in Yemen in favor of human rights. In 2009, President
Obama said, I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat
bankers on Wall Street, although he managed to do as much. Obamas campaign
included the notion that Wall Street fat cats should pay their fair share in
taxes. That hasnt happened, but at least some of those cats are paying a
fair share to him.
And thats all fine and good and ironic and amusing and unimportant.
What matters is what he does and what Warren does, and what Sanders does,
and what the rest of our real and would-be leaders do, where they stake
their futures. Recently Obama spoke reflectively [video] about his own
future: What is the most important thing I can do for my next job, and what
Im convinced of, is that although there are all kinds of issues that I care
about, and all kinds of issues that I intend to work on, the single most
important thing I can do is to help in any way I can prepare the next
generation of leadership to take up the baton and take their own crack at
changing the world.
Really? The single most important thing is to kick the can down the road?
When the house is on fire, the single most important thing is to call an
architect?
Just as the Bush presidency set the conditions for Obama to become
president, so did the Obama presidency set the conditions that have produced
President Trump. Obama entered the White House with the wind at his back,
with Democrats in the majority in Congress, with the country ready for hope
and change and serious leadership. The result, eight years later, is not
pretty. Maybe its not as bad as it seems. Or maybe its worse.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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