Subject: Re: FW: NYT/Nader Letter
From: Cheryl Mills <[email-masked]>
To: Huma Abedin <[email-masked]>
Cc: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 14:29:36 -0400

i am getting on with Leslie - so I think w should do a round robbin call
once we have a draft (been dealing with leslie over the last two days on a
family matter, so easy)

On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Huma Abedin <[email-masked]> wrote:

>  We are going to draft a response letter and send around for comment.
> John, can you help us with Walmart? Maybe Leslie Dach can help? Will want
> to give them a heads up on her letter.
>
>  *From*: Cheryl Mills [mailto:[email-masked]]
> *Sent*: Thursday, May 01, 2014 02:14 PM Eastern Standard Time
> *To*: Huma Abedin
> *Cc*: John Podesta ([email-masked]) <[email-masked]>;
> Philippe Reines ([email-masked]) <[email-masked]>
> *Subject*: Re: FW: NYT/Nader Letter
>
>  good copy
>
>
> On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Huma Abedin <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> john and cheryl - see story below
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Philippe Reines [[email-masked]]
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 11:52 PM
>> To: Huma Abedin; Rob Russo; NSM
>> Cc: H
>> Subject: NYT/Nader Letter
>>
>> Here is the story the Secretary is referring to, and this is the specific
>> reference: "Last week, dozens of labor scholars and activists, including
>> Ralph Nader, sent Mrs. Clinton a letter asking her to use her influence
>> with Walmart to urge the retailer to raise wages for its predominantly
>> female work force. From 1986 to 1992, Mrs. Clinton served on the board of
>> Walmart."
>>
>> Bill Clinton Defends His Economic Legacy
>> By AMY CHOZICK
>> The New York Times
>> April 30, 2014
>>
>> Former President Bill Clinton, who has grown increasingly frustrated that
>> his economic policies are viewed as out-of-step with the current focus on
>> income inequality, on Wednesday delivered his most muscular defense of his
>> economic legacy.
>>
>> The speech reflected a strategic effort by Mr. Clinton and his advisers
>> to reclaim the populist ground now occupied by Senator Elizabeth Warren of
>> Massachusetts and other ascendant left-leaning Democrats, and, potentially,
>> to lay out an economic message that could propel his wife, Hillary Rodham
>> Clinton, to the White House in 2016.
>>
>> "My commitment was to restore broad-based prosperity to the economy and
>> to give Americans a chance," Mr. Clinton told students at Georgetown
>> University, his alma mater, as Mrs. Clinton looked on from the front row.
>> For nearly two hours, the former president defended the impact of policies
>> like welfare overhaul and the earned-income tax credit, and displayed a
>> series of charts detailing the number of people his policies lifted out of
>> poverty.
>>
>> "You know the rest," he said of the 1990s. "It worked out pretty well."
>>
>> As president, Mr. Clinton presided over one of the healthiest economies
>> in recent memory, but he also forged a new model of a pro-business,
>> pragmatic Democrat who championed public-private partnerships and open
>> markets. His language as president was more focused on lifting the middle
>> class than castigating the wealthy. That should not be confused with a lack
>> of concern for the poor, Mr. Clinton says now.
>>
>> That nuance has grown harder to communicate in recent weeks, especially
>> as Ms. Warren has promoted her best-selling book, "A Fighting Chance,"
>> which argues that the deck is stacked in favor of big banks and against
>> ordinary people. A cadre of economic advisers has been helping Mr. Clinton
>> crunch data and think about how to better frame his economic legacy -- one
>> that included a balanced budget and the creation of 22.7 million jobs -- in
>> the context of the current climate of economic populism.
>>
>> The effort began early this year, when the Clintons were accused of using
>> the swearing-in of Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York as a way to shore up
>> their progressive credentials ahead of Mrs. Clinton's potential 2016
>> campaign.
>>
>> "Today, when someone talks about inequality they're supposed to be a real
>> left winger," Mr. Clinton said at a book party in January. Mr. Clinton told
>> the small crowd, which included Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland
>> and a potential rival to Mrs. Clinton, that he had been fighting income
>> inequality since his earliest years in Arkansas politics.
>>
>> He slyly mocked critics who suggest that he had discovered the inequality
>> issue recently, saying: " 'Oh, look at Bill Clinton, he went to the
>> swearing-in of Bill de Blasio. He really is slick still.' "
>>
>> Framing his policies effectively has implications beyond Mr. Clinton's
>> legacy. As she decides whether to run for president in 2016, Mrs. Clinton
>> has come under criticism from some left-leaning Democrats who view her as
>> too cozy with Wall Street. During her 2008 bid, Mrs. Clinton had to balance
>> promoting the economic success of her husband's administration with
>> distancing herself from policies less popular with Democratic primary
>> voters, like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the deregulation
>> of the financial industry.
>>
>> Last week, dozens of labor scholars and activists, including Ralph Nader,
>> sent Mrs. Clinton a letter asking her to use her influence with Walmart to
>> urge the retailer to raise wages for its predominantly female work force.
>> From 1986 to 1992, Mrs. Clinton served on the board of Walmart.
>>
>> "She has been going around the country getting awards and making $200,000
>> per speech giving soft, cushy addresses on mother and apple pie issues,"
>> Mr. Nadar said in an interview. "It just surprises me as to why she
>> wouldn't come out for something so obvious."
>>
>> Mrs. Clinton did advocate raising the minimum wage at a speech in Boston
>> last week. Burns Strider, executive director of Correct the Record, an
>> outside group that defends Mrs. Clinton said, "Prior to it being in style
>> to hold court on the issue of income inequality or lack-of-opportunity,
>> Hillary Clinton was there, not just looking at the issue but taking action."
>>
>> Voters generally have a rosy view of the 1990s: Median family income
>> increased to $48,950 in 1999 from $36,959 in 1993. And, from 1992 to 2000,
>> unemployment fell to 7.6 percent from 14.2 percent for African-Americans
>> and to 5.7 percent from 11.6 percent for Hispanics, according to Department
>> of Commerce data.
>>
>> "People can make their criticisms, but if you look back on the economy,
>> people thought it was pretty darn good, especially for working-class
>> people," John Podesta, a former chief of staff to Mr. Clinton, and a senior
>> adviser to President Obama, said in an interview last fall.
>>
>> In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Clinton called inequality "a severe
>> constraint on growth" and said it had not been as much of an issue in the
>> 1990s, when incomes grew more slowly for the richest 20 percent of families
>> than for the poorest 20 percent.
>>
>> And, he said, he faced a contentious Republican-led Senate and House that
>> would have rejected overheated talk that castigated the wealthy or focused
>> solely on wealth redistribution. Mr. Clinton aimed to appease the other
>> side by also devoting energy to deficit reduction and reforming the welfare
>> system.
>>
>> Al From, an adviser to Mr. Clinton who worked on his 1992 campaign, said,
>> "We argued starting in 1991 that the progressive position ought to be that
>> nobody who works full time in America to support a family ought to be poor."
>>
>> He added, "I'm sure he feels that he doesn't get the credit he deserves
>> for the economic gains that happened during his administration."
>>
>> Critics have accused Mr. Clinton of trying to be all things to all people
>> and said that some of his policies, namely the trade agreements and
>> legislation that allowed the commingling of commercial and investment
>> banks, might have exacerbated the current inequality. Others point out that
>> the Internet boom coincided with his presidency.
>>
>> "You can say, 'Oh, Clinton was lucky, he caught the tech boom.' 'Clinton
>> was lucky, he came out of a recession,' " Mr. Clinton said on Wednesday. He
>> pointed to a chart that showed that 7.7 million people were lifted out of
>> poverty during his administration, compared with 77,000 during the Reagan
>> years.
>>
>> If she runs in 2016, Mrs. Clinton would confront the inequality issue
>> from a very different place than her husband did in 1992, when he made
>> $35,000 a year as governor of Arkansas. Back then, Mr. Clinton seemed to
>> have a natural connection to people of modest means while his opponent, the
>> elder President George Bush, struggled to say how much a gallon of milk
>> cost.
>>
>> On Wednesday, Mr. Clinton said he thanked God every day that "Hillary and
>> I and some of our friends in this audience who live in New York probably
>> pay the highest aggregate tax rates in America."
>>
>> The challenge is not about personal wealth, but policies, said Robert B.
>> Reich, a secretary of labor under Mr. Clinton. And some policy experts
>> argue that the era of centrist Clinton economics may have expired.
>>
>> When asked by CNN last fall whether it was "the end of the Clinton
>> Democrats," Mr. Clinton replied: "There's probably something to that.
>> America is growing more liberal culturally and more diverse."
>>
>> "But, again, let's not get carried away here," he added. "I ran on income
>> inequality in 1992."
>>
>> ###
>> ------Original Message------
>> From: Evergreen
>> To: Huma Abedin
>> To: Rob Russo
>> To: PIR
>> To: NSM
>> Subject: Question
>> Sent: Apr 30, 2014 11:46 PM
>>
>> Does anybody know about this letter Chosick article in 5/1 Times says was
>> sent to me?
>>
>
>