Clinton Questions Hedge Fund Managers’ Work Ethics

Date: Thursday, February 21, 2008
Author: FINalternatives

Hedge funds may be funding much of her campaign and footing her daughter’s bills, but Sen. Hillary Clinton still finds fault.

Suggesting that hedge fund managers and Wall Street executives don’t work as hard as the common man, the Democratic presidential candidate—who has now lost nine consecutive primaries and caucuses to rival Sen. Barack Obama—took her message of tax fairness to Ohio, where she hopes a strong showing in that crucial state’s March 4 primary will reignite her campaign.

“We also have to reward work more, and by that, I mean, I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives,” Clinton said at a restaurant in Parma, Ohio, yesterday. “Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50 million, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That’s very discouraging to people.”

Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, works at hedge fund Avenue Capital Partners.

“You just feel like, ‘wait a minute, I’m working as hard as I can,’” she said. “All those people you see in your law office, they’re working as hard as they can and they feel like they’re just getting further and further behind.”

Clinton has supported efforts in Congress to more than double the amount hedge fund and private equity managers pay in income taxes.