Expensive Ex-Presidents
You just can’t escape politics. The barrage keeps coming at us faster and faster. They’re moving the presidential primaries up to where we’ll probably be electing our next president tomorrow at sunrise.
Even ESPN.com, that once calm oasis, is no longer safe. Gregg Easterbrook, in his regular column there, recently fumed because, as he put it, “wealthy ex-presidents reach into your pockets.”
According to a Congressional Research Service report, all three living former chief executives — Carter, Bush and Clinton — filed for the maximum presidential annual retirement pay of $191,000.
Easterbrook complains these are very wealthy men. Sure, they don’t “need” the money, but they did do the job. Few people work a job and then turn down the paycheck or benefits or a pension.
But, Easterbrook has a point, writing “Clinton prattles on and on about the horrors of inequality, yet demands $191,000 in bonuses from taxpayers whose median income is about 1/20th of his estimated $10 million.”
Bush and Clinton also wanted taxpayers to pay $50,000 for travel. And Bush wanted $13,000 for postage. Gee, fella, try email.
Most outrageous was Bill Clinton’s phone bill of $79,000. Sure, Mr. Clinton has the gift of gab, but Easterbrook checked phone pricing, did some math, and determined “It is impossible, physically impossible, to spend $79,000 on telephones!”
If our ex-presidents are going to do the impossible, I wish they’d do it on their own nickel.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
