Well readers if you thought our government was spend happy before, wait till you read this…

SECURITY– Presidents before 1997 enjoyed security for life. This was changed to only ten years for George W. Bush, but then retroactively returned to lifetime security. Lifetime security includes their spouses, and any children until age 16. But secret service can also decide autonomously continue security after.

PENSION-Executive Level One Pay, which is currently $199,000, in perpetuity.

TRANSITION-Presidents get six months of transition costs.

ALLOWANCE- President Clinton receives $580,000 for office rent, President Bush receives $80,000 for phone bills and $15,000 for President Carter’s postage, Paying in off  with taxpayer money…PRICELESS!

TRAVEL-Congress determined that former Presidents must travel as part of their civic duties, and are allowed $1 million in travel expenses. Again, Congress determines…Taxpayers pay..and pay..and pay!

HEALTH BENEFITS-Presidents receive health benefits for five or more years of Federal service and while it is ‘the same as Congress,’ they also get the added bonus of priority and use veterans hospitals. George HW Bush turned this down and Jimmy Carter is ineligible. I have always thought that while yes the sitting President should get the best healthcare, because he is after all the President, I don’t believe that ex-president should be afforded the same benefits. But here we go again, ON TAXPAYERS DIME!!!

BLAIR HOUSE (PRESIDENTIAL TOWNHOUSE)-The Townhouse is a perk that continues into retirement. The five-story building directly adjacent to the White House is used as a guesthouse for Former Presidents, and includes multiple dining rooms, bedrooms and is connected to the Blair House via a basement housing secret Service operations.

When I did the research for these last two pages, I was flabbergasted. I had no idea that we as taxpayers paid for so much. It is no wonder this country is in the hole that we are in. Seriously, somebody needs to say something to yahoos in Washington who think it’s alright to throw good money after bad this way.

Thank you for allowing me to opine today. I am grateful. Stay with me though because coming up next week…

What kind of job President Obama is doing compared to other Presidents.

POTUS Part IV Perks

Here it is folks…The surprising perks for a sitting President of the United States.

STAFF-The President receives basically an unlimited staff, as determined by Congress. There is some 6 employees in the White House not including security staff. A Chief Usher oversees a Chef, Pastry Chef, Physician, Social Secretary, Chief Calligrapher and others. Each of these people can oversee as many as 21 people themselves.

THE WHITE HOUSE-The White House is incredibly expensive costing over $4 million per annum. Flowers alone cost $250,000 per annum.There’s a movie theatre, bowling alley, tennis and basketball courts, putting green, groundskeepers,  florists, valets, butlers, a pastry chef and 24 hour cooking staff.

RECREATION-The President receives some of the best recreation available. The receive invitations to all the best parties, and any invite that they send out is unlikely to be rebuffed. Thar also many, many activities on the South Lawn.

BLAIR HOUSE-Larger than the White House, its 119 rooms ;include more than 20 bedrooms for guests and staff, four dining rooms, a gym, a flower shop and a hair salon. Several presidents-elect and their families have spent their last  nights before inauguration in Blair House. Even more interesting, when foreign leaders stay at Blair House, the house flies their flag–which means that the house itself become foreign soil. The Presidential Townhouse, set up by Nixon in 1969, is included in the property as a guesthouse for Former Presidents.

AIR FORCE ONE-The middle level of these planes carries up to 70 passengers, as well as a 26-person crew. There’s ample room in the staff, media and security areas in the back half of the plane, but the president has a personal suite under the cockpit with an office bathroom, bedroom and workout room. The upper level of the plane is for the telecommunications center, while the bottom level is for cargo. C17 cargo planes carry the motorcade to wherever the president is headed. It costs appox. $185,000 per hour.

TRAVEL AND ADVANCE TEAM– The Presidential Advance Team includes logistics and security for the president’s motorcade, as well as employing Secret Service against the average of 500 or so death threats the president receives each month. President Bush’s administration in 2003, a trip to London required 904 staffs from Defense, 600 from the armed services, 250 Secret Service officers, 205 White House staff, 103 CIA staff, 44 staff from the State Department 30 more from within the Cabinet, 18 Senior Advance Office staff, 16 Congressmen and 12 Sniffer dogs.

CAMP DAVID-The Presidential vacation home. No Washington heat or traffic. Features 11 cabins, office cabin, swimming pool, shooting range, bowling alley, etc. Plus the use of the Marine One to helicopter in, which is around $7MM each.

All of these perks are just for a sitting president, now I know that the job of President of the United States is an important job and one loaded with anxiety and peril, but WE the taxpayers are paying for our presidents to unwind and relax when most of us can’t afford to relax and unwind ourselves. Think about that.

After doing the research for this installment of “Help wanted…President of the United States”, I have only one thing to say…IT’S GOOD TO BE THE KING!

This weekend…Perks for Ex-Presidents.

Coming up…How President Obama has been doing the job compared to others. In weeks to come…The 2016 Presidential Campaign, the candidates that are left and what they stand for.

Sidebar…

I had started working on the next installment of my “President of the United States” series when I heard Hillary Clinton on the news talking about the Orlando massacre, on June 12, 2016. The attack that was carried out by a Muslim terrorist. It’s such a shame  that there is so much  profound hatred carried out in the name of religion and God. What’s worse is that after something like that happens, ignorance abounds in the form of hate violence against law-abiding, peace loving, friendly Muslims who just want to be left alone to practice their religion like everybody else. 

At any rate I was listening to Mrs. Clinton and her speech about the attack and how Americans should and always do stick together when something like this happens after all we are the land of “E Pluribus Uno”. Mistaking the last word Uno for Unum. It should be E Pluribus Unum…Out of many-One. This phrase has been on our money for as long as I can remember. E Pluribus Unum. And I asked my mother what it meant when I was about 10 years old, and was told. Out of many, one. It’s a comforting phrase, all the Latin phrases on our money are. For example, Annuit Coeptis, above the pyramid, means “God has favored our undertakings.” Then there’s Novus Ordo Seclorum, just below the pyramid, which means, “A new order has begun.” At the base of the pyramid is the roman numeral for 1776.

Secretary Clinton speaks eloquently about being willing to work hard for Americans every day if we elect her President of the United States, but she was unwilling to work hard enough to look at one of the dollar bills in her own pocketbook so that she got the correctly quoted the Latin phrase this morning. How hard do you really think she will work if she gets the job if this is how little she’s willing to work now?

I know she has many fans and I should be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but really! It’s not as though she was asked to leave her home and jog 50 miles to find a dollar bill so she could read the phrase and then remember it for a month before having a gun to her head to say it in her speech. She, I’m certain, had money in her pocketbook and she was the one who decided to include it in her speech, so I feel completely justified in calling her out on not knowing the phrase correctly.

 

Next week…Back with our series on POTUS…Risks

Coming up…Doing a good job as POTUS, and Getting the job.

I hope you are enjoying this series. Please feel free to comment, it really is the only way I will know if you do like what I am writing, or feel free to give me ideas on what to write about next. I look forward to your comments.

 

POTUS III…The Risks

Of course, the ultimate risk for any president is assassination. As my father used to say, “You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but nobody can please all of the people all of the time”. All he really meant was that no matter how hard you try, there will always be some portion of the population, if you are President of the United States, that dislike you for some reason or another. Not being liked by dangerous dissenters is a huge risk. Abraham Lincoln received over 10,000 death threats,  but never believed that anyone would ever really try to kill him. Lincoln noted, “I cannot bring myself to believe that any human lives who would do me any harm.”  Unfortunately, Lincoln did not understand the psyche of John Wilkes Booth. Although six presidents have survived assassination attempts, Lincoln, and three others James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy did not.

Besides assassination attempts,  there is the stress factors of the job of President of the United States. Look at any picture of a president before inauguration and one taken at least 3 years later and the differences are visible. Their hair is gray, or grayer and the lines in their face much more pronounced.

Imagine the uncertainty felt by Abraham Lincoln as he walked into the White House with the country torn asunder in to North vs South, Union vs Confederacy, even brother vs brother in some cases. Imagine the mental suffering Harry Truman went through when placed in his hands was the fate of thousands, as he was forced to decide whether or not to drop atomic bombs on Japan. Herbert Hoover was forced to face, head on, economic disaster when the stock market was gripped by the worse crash in American history, and imagine the anguish George W. Bush must have felt on September 11, 2001. Nothing can prepare a person for such crises.

Even in times of peace and prosperity the day to day duties of the President of the United States are such that it is said that some presidents, such as James Polk worked themselves to death.

It is no wonder that these people and their families receive the best healthcare in the world and the best perks anywhere.

The stress and danger of their jobs demands it. So, when you are thinking to yourselves, that maybe President ? could’ve done a better job, or President ? didn’t do enough for you? Or maybe President ? makes too much $$. Try to put yourselves in their shoes for a minute or two and try to feel what they are feeling. Your opinion may just change.

 

Next: Surprising Perks of the White House

Coming up…What makes a good President