Politico has an informative piece on how much Bubba is costing us compared to Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush:
The price tag for Clinton’s federal retirement allowance from 2001 through the end of this year will run $8 million, compared to $5.5 million for George H. W. Bush’s and $4 million for Jimmy Carter’s during the same period.
Since 2001, Clinton has received more of almost every benefit available to former presidents ” from his pension to his staff’s salaries and benefits to supplies. His $420,000 phone bill and $3.2 million office rent tab both nearly surpassed the totals rung up for those purposes by Bush, Carter and the late former presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan combined. As a group, they spent $484,000 on telephone service and $3.8 million on rent in the same span.
The figures come from congressional reports studying the presidential retirement program and from summaries of annual budget requests by the U.S. General Services Administration, which administers the program, created to allow former presidents to enjoy dignified retirements without having to take jobs that demean or commercialize the presidency.
Some of Clinton’s greater spending stems from the fact that he served eight years in office, qualifying him for a federal health insurance plan unavailable to one-term presidents, and that he selected office space in the high-priced Manhattan market.
Politico’s analysis comes on the heels of the release last week of seven years’ worth of Clinton family tax documents. They showed that the Clintons pulled in $111 million in total income from 2000, their last year in the White House, through 2007.
Given Bill Clinton’s earning potential and that of future ex-presidents, “the benefits taxpayers shell out for their care and feeding just don’t make sense anymore,” contended Pete Sepp, spokesman for the fiscally conservative, nonprofit National Taxpayers Union.
The group has pushed to reduce or cap the perks available to former presidents and their families. “There’s a very flimsy justification for such generosity in many ex-presidents’ cases. In Bill Clinton’s case, there’s zero,” he said.
Ed points out the history of the benefits package, which is important to keep in mind:
The retirement program began in 1958, when Americans were shocked to find Harry Truman struggling to get by back in Missouri. Truman’s humble origins were an unusual prelude to the Presidency, which had been the preserve of wealthy men since the founding of the nation. When he returned to private life, he refused to commercialize his Presidency through speeches and corporate endeavors, and had little income as a result. Congress created a pension plan for retired Presidents to keep them from having to demean themselves for survival.
The Clintons “didn’t ask for, didn’t want, and didn’t need” the Bush tax cuts, but they’ll gladly request these voluntary perks.
more blog reacts at meme
Well, what does anyone expect? Clinton screwed the taxpayers while in office, why should he stop now? Hell, if he died tomorrow, we’d end up footing the bill for a memorial to his sorry butt. About the only chance we have of getting him and Hillary off the government teat would be if their plane went down in the ocean with no survivors. It would have to be with no survivors because the Clintons, like cockroaches, would survive if they had to kill everyone else to do it.
Exactly as FAO says in post 5. These vermin, the Klintons, have been leeching off the public for many years, why should they stop now even with $109M in gross income since leaving the White House in disgrace?
Yet there are idiots, morons, wankers, and mentally-ill fools who still love these skum.