[Wildcatk23]

U.S. taxpayers spent $3.7M on ex-presidents' expenses last year, report says?

Former President Bill Clinton's 8,300-square-foot Harlem office near the Apollo Theater costs taxpayers nearly $450,000. George W. Bush spends $85,000 on telephone fees, and another $60,000 on travel. Jimmy Carter sends $15,000 worth of postage — all on the government's dime.

The most exclusive club in the world has a similarly exclusive price tag — nearly $3.7 million, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. That's how much the federal government spent last year on the four living ex-presidents and one presidential widow.

Topping the list in 2012 was George W. Bush, who got just over $1.3 million last year.

Under the Former Presidents Act, previous inhabitants of the Oval Office are given an annual pension equivalent to a Cabinet secretary's salary — about $200,000 last year, plus $96,000 a year for a small office staff. Taxpayers also pick up the tab for other items like staff benefits, travel, office space and postage.

The $3.7 million taxpayers shelled out in 2012 is about $200,000 less than in 2011, and the sum in 2010 was even higher. It's a drop in the bucket compared with the trillions the federal government spends each year.

Still, with ex-presidents able to command eye-popping sums for books, speaking engagements and the like in their post-White House years, the report raises questions about whether the U.S. should provide such generous subsidies at a time when spending cuts and the deficit are forcing lawmakers and federal agencies to seek ways to cut back.

Departing presidents also get extra help in the first years after they leave office, one reason that Bush's costs were higher than other living ex-presidents. The most recent ex-president to leave the White House, Bush was granted almost $400,000 for 8,000 square feet of office space in Dallas, plus $85,000 in telephone costs. Another $60,000 went to travel costs.

Clinton came in second at just under $1 million last year, followed by President George H.W. Bush at nearly $850,000. Clinton spent the most government money on office space: $442,000 for his Harlem digs.

Costs for Carter, the only other living former president, came in at about $500,000.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/03..._ex-p.html


But yet their are talks of cutting military pay? Most of these men are extremely wealthy and lying crooks but their still living on our dime?