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Clinton has received $16 million in post-presidency benefits
Published March 13, 2015FoxNews.com
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March 7, 2015: Former President Bill Clinton speaks at the Future of Energy
session at a university conference sponsored by the Clinton Global
Initiative in Coral Gables, Fla. (AP)
Former President Bill Clinton has received nearly $16 million in taxpayer
funds since leaving the White House, covering everything from his pension to
personnel to benefits -- and renewing questions over how much taxpayers
really should spend on ex-presidents who make millions after leaving office.
A new Politico report and analysis examined the payments since he left
office in 2001, and claimed it amounts to more than any other ex-president
has received. Meanwhile, Politico points out, Clinton has a personal annual
income that beats all the other living former presidents. His $15 million
advance -- then a record -- for his 2008 memoir was just a sliver of his
earnings. According to reports he's made more than $106 million in speaking
fees alone since 2001.
Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also has earned
millions in speaking fees -- and released a memoir, for which she reportedly
got a $14 million advance, last year. In the first 16 months after leaving
Foggy Bottom in 2012, she made at total of $12 million in personal income,
according to Bloomberg.
This is a far cry from the picture of destitution that lawmakers feared
might face ex-presidents if they did not pass the Former Presidents Act in
1958. Many former commanders-in-chief were in fact personally wealthy, but
some were not. Harry S. Truman, according to a report by the Congressional
Research Service, had numerous financial problems after he left office in
1953, which became the impetus for the act. The FSA affords a pension and
money for numerous expenses, including for personnel, travel costs, health
benefits and office space, for as long as the former presidents live.
From 2001 to 2014 Clinton has received a roughly $200,000 annual pension (
all presidents received the same level of pension in 2014). Politico
reported that the federal money, though, has also gone toward boosting the
salaries of some employees of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Foundation. And nearly $1 million went toward equipment and communications-
related costs, according to Politico.
While Clinton has gotten the most since 2001, ex-President George H.W. Bush
is catching up, according to CRS. He received the second-highest amount of
benefits -- $14 million since 2001. Meanwhile, George W. Bush, who has
received $7 million from the government since 2009, spent marginally more
than Clinton on office space in 2014 -- $420,000 for an office in Dallas,
Texas, compared with Clinton’s $415,000 digs in Manhattan.
Criticism of the FSA might someday lead to reform of the law. Rep. Jason
Chaffetz, R-Utah, has already introduced a bill that would cap the full
package of annual benefits at $400,000. |
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