“We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” Hillary Clinton complained in an interview in 2014, justifying her spree of paid speeches on Wall Street and elsewhere.
Those speeches have now turned into a major political controversy, with the campaign refusing to agree to release the transcripts of what was said.
Despite Clinton’s protestations, however, the reality is that this country does not allow its former presidents to live “dead broke.” Running the country has great retirement benefits. Ex-presidents are given pensions of nearly $200,000 annually as well as funding for office space and custodial staff.
The new normal is that our ex-presidents rely on huge paydays from private interest groups to fund their lifestyles. But that flies in the face of the original intent of the presidential pension, which was to preserve the dignity of former presidents and prevent corruption.
The origins of the presidential pension
The first proposal for a presidential pension system came from steel industry magnate Andrew Carnegie, who was the world’s richest man when he retired in 1901. In 1912, Carnegie offered to privately fund a $25,000 annual pension for future ex-presidents, arguing that our chief executives should be able to “spend their latter days free from pecuniary cares in devoting the intimate knowledge they have gained of public affairs to the good of the country.”
Then-President Teddy Roosevelt, the trust-buster, criticized the proposal — not because it wasn’t enough money, but because it was too much. “My interest isn’t in pensions for ex-presidents but in pensions for the small man who doesn’t have a chance to save, and who, when he becomes superannuated, faces the direst poverty,” he said.
Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, refused Carnegie’s offer, and the idea of a presidential pension whatsoever went nowhere for decades.
When Harry Truman was getting ready to leave the White House in 1953, he was approached by numerous employers. The Los Angeles Times reported that if he was “unemployed after he leaves the White House it won’t be for lack of job offers … but [he] has accepted none of them.”
One of those job offers was from a Florida real estate developer, asking him to become a “chairman, officer, or stockholder, at a figure of not less than $100,000” — the sort of position that is commonplace today for ex-politicians.
“I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency,” Truman would later write of his refusal to influence-peddle to get by.
Although he had access to a small pension from his military service, Truman had little financial support after leaving office. He moved back into his family home in Independence, Missouri. He eventually agreed to write a memoir for Life magazine, but it was a lengthy project that provided far from luxurious stipends.
In 1958, Dwight Eisenhower and Congress finally acted, partly in response to Truman’s plight, establishing the pension system for ex-presidents we have today.
The presidential path to riches
But modern presidents expect to live in luxury after they leave office, and to people with that sense of entitlement, $200,000 a year is chump change. By comparison, the median private pension benefit of individuals age 65 and older was $9,227 a year in 2014 — for those people lucky enough to have a pension in the first place.
The first ex-president to aggressively supplement his pension was Gerald Ford. He joined the boards of corporations such as 20th Century Fox, hit the paid speech circuit, and was made an honorary director by Citigroup.
Ronald Reagan, known for slashing the taxes of America’s richest and crushing trade unions opposed by large businesses, quickly cashed out. Almost immediately after leaving office, he joined the speaker circuit, doing “two or three” speeches a month before Fortune 500 companies. It was estimated that Reagan earned $50,000 a speech.
At a time when Japan was a major trade rival with the United States, Reagan flew to Japan for a series of paid speeches. He accepted $2 million for a pair of 20-minute speeches to the Fujisankei Communications Group. An additional $5 million was arranged for expenses related to the visit.
Prominent business consultant Chin Ning Chu, looking back in her 1991 book on Asian business culture, wrote that the Japan speeches “demonstrated to the world that Japan has arrived … [it] put a price tag on the president of the United States.” She noted that “By paying Reagan a sum so disproportionately large for his services, they sent a clear message to American political leaders: If during a politician’s career he cooperates with the Japanese, then the Japanese will take care of him after retirement. There is no law against paying a former member of government for a few speeches after he has retired from public service.”
Then-President George H.W. Bush was asked about the practice of ex-presidents getting private sector paydays. “I have no problem with that, provided it’s not overdone. Everybody’s got to make a living,” he replied.
His son George W. Bush made at least $15 million from over 100 paid speeches between 2011 and 2015. The exact number is a mystery because former presidents are not required to disclose their income.
We know how much Bill Clinton made only because he shared a bank account with his wife when she was a senator and then secretary of state, making his income a required disclosure. The two have earned at least $139 million from speeches, including $35 million from the financial sector.
And despite the fact that his wife is running for president, Bill Clinton has not stopped. “I gotta pay our bills,” he explained. One of those paid speeches last summer was before America’s Health Insurance Plans, the primary lobbying group that plowed money into trying to defang and defeat the Affordable Care Act.
“I never made any money until I left the White House,” Bill Clinton told a student group in 2009. “I had the lowest net worth, adjusted for inflation, of any president elected in the last 100 years, including President Obama. I was one poor rascal when I took office. But after I got out, I made a lot of money.”
Reforming the system
Congress appropriated $3.5 million for presidential pensions and other benefits in 2015.
Members of Congress in both parties are sponsoring legislation that would reduce ex-presidents’ pension payouts if they earn more than a predefined threshold in private sector earnings annually.
“Taxpayers should not have to pay for a former president’s allowance if the former president is making a comfortable living earning more than $400,000 a year after leaving office,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., about the bill. The bill passed the House in January.
One recent ex-president who didn’t cash out, of course, is Jimmy Carter. Perhaps not coincidentally, in a Quinnipiac University poll released in November, a plurality of Americans said Carter has had the best post-presidency.
Carter “seldom accepts speaking fees and when he does he typically donates the proceeds to his charitable foundation,” noted the Associated Press; Carter has instead built a comfortable life by writing dozens of books.
Top photo: Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush laugh together during a Presidential Leadership Scholars program at the Newseum, September 2014, in Washington, D.C.
While the description of the presidential pension is accurate, the Clinton situation was not. They owed $7M in legal fees defending both Clintons in civil lawsuits and Congressional investigations while Bill was president.
Major corporate benefactors assured them that speaking fees and other honorariums would earn them enough to clear up their debt and then some.
caption for the photo above the article:
And then I raped her with a bayonet.
But then they sell out anyway, just to keep in practice.
Could the author please clarify the sentence “The two have earned at least $139 million from speeches, including $35 million from the financial sector”? When I click on a link I’m taken to an NYT article that says that the pair’s total income was $139 million (from 2007 to 2014). I’m presuming that not all of that came from ridiculous speakers’ fees – some might have come from dishonest post-Whitewater investments, selling books to clueless individuals, checks from the State Dep’t., White House pension payments, etc.
Hi Plum,
They have basically three sources of income: speeches (vast majority of it including the 139 million), books (which were mostly in early 00s then recently), and their government pensions
$153 million in Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking fees, documented
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/?
So some of the speeking fees are financial sector, but others are huge pay days from educational institutions. I imagine other speaking fees could be think tanks, trade associations, other major industries besides finance.
Bill Clinton is a pleasure to hear, but if Hillary gets paid for a speech—>necessarily corruption.
Yeah, serial rapists and one-time drug lords are just a hoot, aren’t they?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Clintons-Women-Roger-Stone/dp/151070678X
http://www.amazon.com/Hillary-And-Bill-The-Volume/dp/097857334X
http://www.amazon.com/Hillary-Bill-Volume-Clinton-Trilogy/dp/0978573358
Guess so!
I did want to add that Hillary and Bills remarks about being broke was kind of disingenous. After all they had to figure they would be making money either through writing books, and giving speeches. I am guessing they didn’t have that much debt when they left the White House. Yes they needed a place to live. I am sure they were both in negotiations to do things after they left the White House.
Why use a big long latinate word like “disingenuous”.
They lied.
Nice, short, punchy, germanic, almost like a four letter word.
If a politician can make money by giving speeches or lectures ok by me. But when you are giving a speech for big money where that money can be an influence than I have a problem with that. The big banks are not giving Clinton money for no quid pro quo. I assume she was out of office when she made those speeches and there is no guarantee that she will win the presidency. How ever even if one is out off office I think you can still influence people in Congress.
I have gotten into arguments about how corrupt the US has become. It’s not the low level bullshit of small countries but grand scale larceny set up by a revolving door of public and private officials. The elites have set up a system of white collar crime syndicates of CEO’s making laws that favor industry giants sucking money out of the working class without any repercussions what so ever. I’m sure that Bernie scares the big industry just because he sees how the corrupt operate. I don’t know if he can win the White House. This nation needs a knight in shining honor to save it but I don’t think it can happen because “we the people” have lost our ability to get elected officials to work in our favor.
As bad as this looks, it may be worse in Canada. Ex-politicos get a massive pension if they serve as little as 4 years, and they can work for lobbying firms and/or companies with govt contracts with no restrictions.
We need an Intercept in Canada.
Bernie lights up a room when he comes into it. The only time Hillary lights up a room is when she leaves.
Yes, stolen from Dick Gregory and substituted names. Hillary replaced Nixon.
We have become so greedy for fame and fortune that we too closely embrace the excesses of our worst selves in our mythology. The quote below is a exaggeration like all myths but still holds a ring of truth.
Doc Holliday in the movie “Tombstone” (1993). “A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
I don’t know why anyone would think that Presidential pensions would prevent them from selling out. It’s just an additional $200K added to the other money they make after they leave office. It’s called greed!
Would You claim that …
blooming flowers create the rain?
sooth and ashes make the fire?
sweat heats the body?
centric waves throw the stone?
thermometer makes temperature?
the subsidies to Puerto Rico build the USA?
Or would You claim always the opposite?
So why are You claiming that CO2, as the smallest indicator of temperature variations on Earth can make global warming?
Green house gases theory is based on selective research and reduced perspective.
Whatever rays a gas may absorb, at the end it is turned into another frequency of energy and mainly heat rays. Heated air knows only one direction this is upwards, up to the point, where the energy is left out to the space.
The main error in this theory is not asking why H2O, CO2, CH4 & NOx come into the Atmosphere. There is always a burning activity, maybe openly as visible fire, the digestion process of animals, volcanic & Earth core heating of oceans ….
First comes the heat and as result of that the gases are evaporated and emitted, heating up the lower Troposphere and rising higher and higher, until it becomes too cold, condensing and coming down again. The same process like in a Lava-Lamp.
The main transporter of heat is H2O, visible as forming clouds. Compared to that CO2 is only a trace indicator of the heating process. Condeming CO2 for anything is like blaming the thermometer at the wall for the temperature in a warm or cold room, by ignoring the bad regulated heater.
Another analogy would be, looking at sweating humans as an alien, seeing the sweat on the skin and speculating that the sweat is the reason ob body heat.
TROPOSPHERIC Solar Radiation & WATER Management (TSR&WM) is reducing the PHOTOSYNTHESIS by blocking the SUNLIGHT!
The indicator for that effect is less absorption of CO2 from air and the weakness and death of trees!
STOP TSR&WM!
More posts, explaining other aspects of Geoengineering SRM scam!
Collateral damage of SRM WAR!
VitaminD deception by VitatimD deficiency & SRM chemtrails! MIH tooth disease!
http://geoarchitektur.blogspot.de/2015/07/vitamin-d-srm.html
Burka inhibits VitaminD and destroys the society!
http://geoarchitektur.blogspot.de/2016/01/burka-verhindert-vitamind-und-zerstort.html
Blaming wild fires on the HOAX of CO2 caused globalwarming & climatechange !
http://geoarchitektur.blogspot.de/2015/07/blaming-wildfires-on-hoax.html
CO2 rise by #Geoengineering SRM! Deconstructing Geoengineering Mafia by simple facts!
Killing the trees!
http://geoarchitektur.blogspot.de/2015/12/co2-rise-by-geoengineering-srm.html
SCAM and TERROR!
Ponzi scheme of CO2 finance bubble!
http://geoarchitektur.blogspot.de/2015/10/co2-finance-bubble.html
Designed like a religion, dangerous like the mafia!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e2U2cYcPro
http://geoarchitektur.blogspot.de/2015/10/climatology-mafia-church.html
I guess this is proof that comments aren’t moderated, or at least well moderated.
The Intercept gets a lot of forum-sliding posts.
Thank you for this.
Is Hillary Clinton even able to utter a truthful sentence?
So, how about a law that prevents former presidents from taking ANY money in exchange for doing or endorsing anything, or for using their presidential influence in any way. $200,000/year is more than anyone needs.
First Amendment. The best we could do is take away their pension.
I’ve been thinking about this topic lately. In addition to getting money out of elections, I think we should explore something along the lines of Smedley Butler’s suggestions to eliminate the profit motive for war and the police state. Something that requires every employee of the government and every company doing business with the government to reduce all salaries to the median salary for solidiers and require that all profits be redirected back to the Treasury.
If we have go to war, fine, then we all sacrifice, including the CEO of Lockheed, whose compensation goes from $25M to $30,000. That way we can be sure that it’s absolutely necessary for us to start killing people and sending our young people to die.
This is an interesting insight into primitive early twentieth century American culture, before everything had been monetized.
Now, of course, candidates like Mrs. Clinton commercialize the prestige of the presidency prior to even becoming President. An earlier age would have referred to this as counting your chickens before they’re hatched. They would have been shocked to learn the speaking engagements of prospective future Clinton grand-children have probably already been optioned by Goldman Sachs. This might seem excessive, but is legitimate entrepreneurial risk taking. Consider that after Jeb Bush’s recent results in Iowa, options on speaking fees for the Bush grand-children are now trading at pennies on the dollar.
This reveals the need to commercialize every opportunity which presents itself, because if you wait too long, the opportunity may disappear.
Exactly. Take advantage of your short shelf life as both a FUTURE and then EX-PRESIDENT and the largess bestowed by the banksters. I really hope some day I can run for President so I can make loads of cash, be President (that lull in the storm), then return to making loads of cash after being President, the dignity and prestige of the office, my own integrity as a public servant, my sense of honor and decency, ethics and propriety, all be damned. ‘Cause it’s really all about the money, ya know. And, besides, I have “bills to pay.”
Bernie is a Socialist and The Invisible Hand is fickle my friend. *Certainly, Hillary can present a bill for such services … ‘after all, we are not communists.’
“*Certainly, Hillary can present a bill for such services …”
iz wat awl respectumbull wurkink gurlz due don u no.
quote:”iz wat awl respectumbull wurkink gurlz due don u no.”
respectumbull wurkink gurlz:
Lloyd Blankfein “Mi deer Ms Clinton, we wud like u mak speech tu Wall Street reech peoble. Wud u tak oun millun dollar to speek?
Hillary: “Wye Mr. Blankfein, off korese I wud.”
Lloyd Blankfein”Wel thin, wud you speek fur oun undrud dolars”
Hillary: (indignant): Wye Mr. Blankfein, whut du u thing I im?
Lloyd Blankfein: “Wel Ms Clinton, thaat iss alrety bin stablished. Now wur just aggling bout teh price don yu no.
furry gud loonette.
yew haev capshured teh essunce uv teh negosheeyayshumz purrfeckly hunnee.
butt yew misspeeled “peepholez” “wun” an “hundturd”.
Oh c’mon, Benito. Truman was clearly just playing hard ball like any of us would. When he says “I could never…commercialize…the presidency,” he clearly means, “I am very expensive.” But he sucked, so there weren’t any acceptable bids, so he seemed upstanding in the end despite his best efforts.
Are these really just ‘speeches’ (unlikely as i doubt presidents know shit about finance & economics – thats why they have specialist advisors) or are these ‘speeches’ a way of justifying payments made to ex-officials to cover behind the scenes lobbying of current officials for political favours on behalf of corporate inrerests. I think we all know the answer.
Once again, the intercept has turned what should be a long-form piece into an unsatisfactory morsel of what I crave- real investigative journalism. I’m a democratic socialist, and I definitely will not be voting this year. I just can’t bare to see Sen. Saunders, loose to Sec. Clinton & co. William and Hillary represent PRECICSELY what’s wrong with that party (elitist, way too intelligent for their own good) They are masterful at manipulating blue collar democrats and college educated liberals into voting for them. The only thing they have going for them is that they are not religiously deranged, science-hating conservatives born into money, who have never had to fight for ANYTHING in their lives since birth (I’m looking at you Jeb! & do.) It’s clear to me that on specific issues like funding higher education, and fighting inequality that both parties know well in advance that nothing will change even after they assume office. Most candidates this cycle are empty vessels with only a few marbles of raw ambition and hubris clinking around in them. Dear Hillary, if your goal was to raise $2Bn to get elected, you’ve already been compromised before the election. Dear Obama, you raised $1B in 2008, congrats. What happened to the campaign finance reform you promised? Dear electorate, you vote like you have either been born yesterday or like an amnesiac would. Sad.
Mr. Jilani
I am all for past Presidents making as much money as they can after leaving office ($200,000 is pocket change), but if you are married to an ex-President and you plan to run for office, you might pay a price during the campaign. Lobbying and campaign contributions are free speech. Besides Wall Street, Ms Clinton will be beholden to environmental organizations, unions (including the teacher’s union), minorities, abortion rights activists (women’s issues) etc. All pay good money to influence the President. They may not win.
You have grossly underestimated the Clintons. It’s not that unions, environmental orgs, minorities, abortion providers and Wall Street are manipulating the Clintons, it is the other way round. They are not progressive in any sense of the world. They are realists who are pandering to gullible uncynical progressives. Let me give you an example: I’m mixed race. When I see Hillary Clinton talking to mothers who have lost their children to police shootings, I think to myself that she is gaining more out of it than they are. When I see her speaking to a group of female small business owners/entrepreneurs, I think to myself that she is getting more out of it than they are. I don’t for a second think that the Clinton’s can’t sleep at night because black men are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice / penal system. But they sure as hell want you to believe that they do. But at the end of the day, I know the folks on the other end of the political spectrum care even less than the Clintons do.
The Clintons are the other end of the political spectrum.
Pocket change? OK, then give me $200,000/year so I can retire in luxury. Geeze, greed and materialism know no bounds, and you’re proof of that.
The subject matter of this piece warrants a longer format, as many Intercept stories do. Do I think commenting here about my outrage will change anything? Nope. Nevertheless, I have to vent. I like to think of myself as a democratic socialist, and I’m so saddened that the H. Clinton & co. are running again and duping working class democrats and white collar college educated liberals into voting for them. Combined, the Clintons amount to PRECISELY everything wrong with the Democrats. They are smart, elitist, wealthy, and master manipulators. The only thing they have going for them is that they aren’t religiously deranged, climate-change denying, stiff conservatives born into money and completely out of touch with the man at the bottom. Don’t get me wrong, they are out of touch- but in another way. I honestly don’t believe they think of themselves as corrupt – and that is the core of the problem. No one should have to raise one (Obama’s) or two billion (Hilary’s goal) dollars to get elected. Less important people get punished for minor offenses and head’s of government / corporations basically have immunity from prosecution and golden parachutes waiting for them at the end.
I haven’t forgotten or forgiven the democrats for turning their backs on President Carter. He is still the same; ethical, honest and compassionate. And unfortunately, the democrats have stayed the same as well. It is finally catching up with them; old and young, we are tired of the two party monopoly game.
Hear, hear! Starting in March, I’m going to be helping Jill Stein petition onto the ballot in Illinois, so we have at least one more candidate aside from the Democrats and Republicans, although there will likely be at least two on a majority of state ballots if one counts the Libertarian Party’s candidate.
For fuck’s sake, I’d rather that the American people reasonably subsidize any former US President in a dignified lifestyle post-presidency via a $200,000.00 pension than have the appearance that a former US President “cashes in” on his public service in any way which is entirely antithetical to the idea of “public service” in the first instance.
Really really really pisses me off any high level public official is allowed to do that. There should be strict laws passed in this country that prohibits any elected or appointed “public servant” from deriving any sort of “income” off what he/she learns during his/her tenure in office. If you want to make money in the private sector lobbying your former colleagues or anybody else, you should have to wait 5 years, register as such, and then have a special income tax bracket for any “income” that is “derived” in any way from your “experience” in the “public service”.
Here’s the fact of the matter–it isn’t “public service” by definition if you are drawing anything more than your salary and benefits package for performing your “official duties”. Trading on it in any way post-service is what is commonly known as “influence peddling” and it should be against the law for any former “public servant”.
Some people, and specifically some of our elected “public officials” truly disgust me in so many ways. I’m getting the sense I’m not the only one. But a full or partial career in “public service” subsidized directly by America taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be a “stepping stone” or “way station” on “cashing in” on what you learned while the American taxpayers were funding your “education” and “skills”. If that’s the case then all salary and benefits of elected officials should be considered a “loan” and anyone who goes on to personally benefit from that “service” should have the value of all of those benefits and salary “disgorged” dollar for dollar once the person is shown to be profiting off his public service experiences or skills.
It is simply unconscionable that a low level civil servant, of which I was one for 14.5 years, could lose his/her job in a heartbeat for taking a gift over $50, but a sitting Congressperson or President can “cash-in” to the tune of 100s of millions of dollars post public service. Fucking despicable and a prime example of both the revolving door and the systematic/system corruption that has ruined America.
American politicians better start being real careful because this level of in your face corruption never lasts, and what usually happens is something horrific when the plebes finally get good and fucking fed up with it.
@rrheard-Yup, you are correct……
If you want to make money in the private sector lobbying your former colleagues or anybody else, you should have to wait 5 years, register as such, and then have a special income tax bracket for any “income” that is “derived” in any way from your “experience” in the “public service”.
Yes. And you shouldn’t be able to borrow ginormous sums of money to support your post-“service” career in money speculations either:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/geithner-gets-jpmorgan-credit-line-100003156.html
It is simply unconscionable that a low level civil servant, of which I was one for 14.5 years, could lose his/her job in a heartbeat for taking a gift over $50, but a sitting Congressperson or President can “cash-in” to the tune of 100s of millions of dollars post public service.
Yup. Where I worked there were annual mandatory continuing ed programs regarding how to avoid and/or report such incidents. In fact, pretty sure they didn’t even put a minimum $ amount on it. It just wasn’t supposed to happen at all.
Taft was president in 1912. T Roosevelt was the only living ex-president.
While it doesn’t justify the Clintons taking so much money to tell Wall Street audiences what they want to hear, they did leave the White House with huge legal bills, thanks to the various Clinton scandals (Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, etc). So yes, they were broke; they owed a lot more money than they had to the lawyers. Maybe that’s why they turned into such aggressive money-grubbers.
If they didn’t want to do the time they shouldn’t have done the crime.
They were never found guilty and therefore they did not ‘do the crime’. But they still had massive legal bills they needed to pay.
That said, the growth in delayed recompense still looks like corruption that most ex officials take part in. I think Carter is the only one who has made the choice of an ethical life by giving his fees to charities and still continuing to work for the good of the nation and of the world.
It is we the people who contribute to the demeaning of integrity when we praise those who have cheapened the office since the 80’s by accepting the policies that allow public officials to trade their power and access for personal wealth.
Bill Clinton was disbarred from the Supreme Court and his license to practice law was suspended by the State of Arkansas for five years. He lied to the court in the Paula Jones case.
Ummm – those bills were paid long ago. They can’t even pretend they are amassing a fortune for Lawyer fees, or charity, or anything else anymore.