Posted on 03/18/2016 7:53:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
resident Obama sought to increase the amount of money available for the federal government to spend on former presidents in advance of his White House exit.
In his budget requests for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, Obama proposed hikes in the appropriations for expenditures of former presidents, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service published Wednesday.
The report, which discusses the pensions and other federal benefits offered to former commanders-in-chief by way of the Former Presidents Act, specifies that Obama’s 2017 budget proposes a nearly 18 percent hike in appropriations for expenditures of former presidents. He successfully requested an increase in such appropriations for fiscal year 2016.
“The President’s FY2017 budget request seeks $3,865,000 in appropriations for expenditures for former Presidents, an increase of $588,000 (17.9%) from the FY2016 appropriation level. The increase in requested appropriations for FY2017 anticipates President Barack Obama’s transition from incumbent to former President,” the report reads.
“For FY2016, President Obama requested and received appropriations of $3,277,000 for expenditures for former Presidents–an increase of $25,000 from FY2015 appropriated levels.”
The Former Presidents Act, enacted in 1958, provides living former presidents with a pension, office staff and support, funds for travel, Secret Service protection, and mailing privileges. It also provides benefits for presidential spouses. Currently, former presidents are awarded a pension equal to the salary of cabinet secretaries, which totaled $203,700 for the 2015 calendar year and was boosted by $2,000 for the current calendar year.
Critics of the act argue that it financially supports former presidents who are not struggling. Many of them, alternatively, have gone on to profit from writing books about their time in the White House or delivering paid speaking engagements.
Former President Bill Clinton, for example, earned $132 million for delivering paid speeches between February 2001 and March 2015, according to an analysis from CNN. Clinton received $924,000 in taxpayer dollars last year by way of the Former Presidents Act.
Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would cap annual pensions for former presidents at $200,000. Additionally, the bills would cut each pension by a dollar for every dollar the former president earns over $400,000 in the private sector in a given year. The measure was approved by the House in January with bipartisan support.
“It’s pretty simple. You want a retirement and pension, it’s there. But if you’re going to go out and make enormous sums of money, then you don’t need taxpayer subsidies,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), who introduced the bill in the House, told ABC News in an interview.
“The former presidents are making gobs of money speaking and writing books, more power to them, but that doesn’t mean they need more taxpayer dollars on top of that,” Chaffetz added. “It’s embarrassing that they take that money.”
it’s just paper!!!
Burn the whole ####ing system down to the ground and start over. Figuratively speaking, of course.
No conflict of interest here.
Nothing to see, move along.
Who could have imagined Clinton or Bush dynasties even fifty years ago? Maybe the fathers, I suppose. Now look at the Democrat candidates; Hillary and Bernie. One a corrupt imbecile. The other a Communist imbecile.
It's really hard not to be pessimistic about the direction things are taking.
But there’s no COLA this year and several other years during his presidency for Seniors receiving Social Security or federal and postal retirees, most of whom live on modest retirement checks and many of whom are not eligible for Social Security because their work years are federal time. If they do have enough quarters of eligibility to qualify for Social Security, the Government Pension Offset mandates a 60 percent reduction of whatever Social Security they might receive and perhaps a total reduction. In other words, not even a crummy one percent increase for seniors retired under this system or seniors receiving only Social Security.
Anyone surprised??
I get it that these two are imbeciles but what I don't get is why are there so many in the voting world who are willing to support these two imbeciles????
Why do Millionaires need tax payer’s hard earned money
“Why do Millionaires need tax payer’s hard earned money”
Wow, you get the award for the most racist statement ever uttered in the history of this universe and the five closest parallel ones
Well, the short answer is that Democrats have to vote for somebody. And for whatever reason, leading Democrats stepped aside, to try to make it easy for Hillary to have a coronation at her convention.
Nobody really thought that Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, etc. would be serious competition for Hillary for the nomination. I think many are surprised that Bernie has done as well as he has.
They don't. I'd like to see if there was some way of motivating more talented people to run for these offices. As it stands now, we tend to get power hungry people with limited abilities and little real world experience.
To get there, these politicians have to endure a level of public scrutiny not imagined by the fathers.
It would be nice to have better candidates with real world experience running for office. But even those few people with success in other areas who may want to serve charitably in government have to expose themselves to the nastiest set of conditions to do so.
I don't know what the incentives might be for folks like that but I doubt it's going to be money. So I don't see this move by Obama as being anything productive except to his pocketbook.
In January isn’t the number of former presidents going to go from three to four? I would assume the extra money is for that.
Just the incremental increase is enough to employee nearly two people at minimum wage.
I know THEIR solution would be, "You're right. We need to increase the minimum wage!"
I say, out with the cost increase.
No. Since the number of former presidents is increasing then I expect the funding for them has to go up.
I see what you did there.
You've no idea how perilously close I came to responding to that with "speak for yourself".
That is what I want to know too.
They should also cut out some of that staff requirement. Make the mopes answer their own damn mail.
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