List reproduces various 'Marxist' statements made by Hillary Clinton.
This list of purported 'Marxist' quotes by former first lady, senator, presidential candidate, and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is (like many collections of utterances from various political figures) difficult to rate as strictly 'true' or 'false': She did make the statements reported above, but they have all been stripped of any explanatory context, and some of them had portions elided, creating potentially misleading impressions about the nature of those statements. Below we verify the source and complete wording of each statement on this list and provide the context in which it was made. (All of these entries date from between 2004 and 2007, during which time Hillary Clinton represented the state of New York in the U.S. Senate.) 'We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.'This statement by Senator Hillary Clinton was not (as commonly assumed) addressed to the general public, but rather to a group of relatively well-to-do Democrats attending a June 2004 fundraiser for California senator Barbara Boxer. Her statement specifically referred to a desire to repeal tax cuts that had recently been enacted by the Bush administration, cuts which many Democrats had criticized as favoring the wealthy:Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters - some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend - to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress. 'Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you,' Sen. Clinton said. 'We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.''It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few ... And to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity.'This entry is a pieced-together passage from a 29 May 2007 economic policy speech given by Senator Clinton on the subject of 'Modern Progressive Vision: Shared Prosperity.' The supposedly 'Marxist' nature of this statement is undercut when the sentences that immediately followed it (affirming support for a free market economy) are included for context:It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an 'on your own' society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society. Now, there is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed. When we get our priorities in order and make the smart investments we need, the markets work well.'(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people.''We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground.''I certainly think the free-market has failed.'The above three statements are all out-of-context passages taken from a 4 June 2007 CNN 'Presidential Forum' conducted with three Democratic presidential hopefuls, senators John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. The second statement was part of a straightforward expression of the need to for people to reach a consensus (through metaphorically giving up some of their political 'turf,' not literally giving up their possessions) on how to proceed in order to tackle an issue such as universal health insurance, while the first statement is another pieced-together quote that omits the contextual references to the issues of health care, dependence on foreign oil, and climate change:We can set the vision. We can even work to articulate the goal. But the pathway is extraordinarily complicated because of how we live today and how we think of ourselves in relation to our fellow citizens. Take health care. I think we could get almost unanimous agreement that having more than 45 million uninsured people, nine million of whom are children, is a moral wrong in America. And I think we could reach that agreement, and then we would have to start doing the hard work of deciding what we were going to do to make sure that they were not uninsured, because an uninsured person who goes to the hospital is more likely to die than an insured person. I mean, that is a fact. So, what do we do? We have to build a political consensus. And that requires people giving up a little bit of their own turf, in order to create this common ground. The same with energy - you know, we can't keep talking about our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to deal with global warming, and the challenge that it poses to our climate and to God's creation, and just let business as usual go on. And that means something has to be taken away from some people.The third statement was part of a passage in which Senator Clinton listed a number of entities (including churches, schools, and the government, as well as the free market) that she felt had failed in helping young people to make responsible decisions (particularly in reference to abortion):Q: Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in a pro-life camp, creating a common ground, with the goal ultimately in mind of reducing the decisions for abortion to zero? A: Yes. Yes. And that is what I have tried to both talk about and reach out about over the last many years, going back, really, at least 15 years, in talking about abortion being safe, legal, and rare. And, by rare, I mean rare. And it's been a challenge, because the pro-life and the pro-choice communities have not really been willing to find much common ground. And I think that is a great failing on all of our parts, because, for me there are many opportunities to assist young people to make responsible decisions. There is a tremendous educational and public outreach that could be done through churches, through schools, through so much else. But I think it has to be done with an understanding of reaching people where they are today. We have so many young people who are tremendously influenced by the media culture and by the celebrity culture, and who have a very difficult time trying to sort out the right decisions to make. And I personally believe that the adult society has failed those people. I mean, I think that we have failed them in our churches, our schools, our government. And I certainly think the, you know, free market has failed. We have all failed. We have left too many children to sort of fend for themselves morally.'I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched.'This passage was taken from a 2 September 2005 appearance by Senator Clinton in front of constituents in Elmira Heights, New York, where (in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) she expressed her opinion about the need for federal regulatory oversight of the oil industry in order to curb high gasoline prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil:The anxiety and anger felt by motorists was evident at nearly every turn in her travels throughout the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. She made clear she shared the concern. 'I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in our entire economy that they're being watched,' she said in explaining her call for an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission. 'I think human nature left to itself is going to push the limit as far as possible, and that's what you need a government regulatory system for: to keep an eye on people to make the rules of the game fair, to make a level playing field and not give anybody some kind of undue advantage.' Clinton criticized the new energy bill, which she opposed, as inadequate to solve the country's long-term energy problem. She said the United States has regressed over the past three decades, since the first oil shocks of the early 1970s. 'We've had 30 years to do some things we haven't done,' she said. 'In fact we've gotten, we've gone backwards in many respects. 'I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I'm tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies,' Clinton said.
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