Former President Barack Obama is proving to be the most expensive ex-president alive, demanding over $1 million from taxpayers in order to fund his extravagant lifestyle.
His budget request for the upcoming year are larger than Bill Clinton’s by $100,000.
have surpassed George Bush and Bill Clinton by more than $100,000, and Jimmy Carter by more than half a million.
Former President Obama requires $1,153,000 in taxpayers’ dollars as part of his 2018 budget. And, of all five living former Presidents, Obama has demanded the most extravagant taxpayer allowance. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both use an allowance that is $100,000 less than Obama, while Jimmy Carter gets by with less than half that of Obama, $456,000.
In the detailed budget requests submitted by the former Presidents, taxpayers can delve deeper into the spending habits of former presidents. Obama’s largest expense is the rent he pays to maintain a palatial office in the middle of the most ritzy area of Washington, DC. Obama’s DC office, a sign that he doesn’t plan on taking the dignified path and retiring from politics, is over 8 thousand square feet in size. The annual rent for this office comes to $536,000 – which is a larger expense than the entirety of Jimmy Carter’s budget request.
It should be noted that, after serving, former presidents generally turn to the lecture circuit, or write detailed autobiographies of their time in office, and rake in millions in the process. But not content with that, or relying on his family’s immense personal wealth, Obama also commands the highest pension of any president.
Obama will be pulling $236,000 a year pension to fund his lavish lifestyle. While this obscene sum is only slightly larger than Bill Clinton’s equally outrageous pension, it is much higher than the pension that both W. Bush and H.W. Bush pull – which is $225,000 per year.
While there is a reason that former presidents receive government pensions – Harry Truman nearly became destitute and homeless after his term – the Obama era has seen already wealthy presidents push the boundary of taxpayer’s generosity. It may be time to revise the Former Presidents Act of 1958, and restore a little bit of fiscal sanity.
Do you believe that former presidents should be burning through money like tabloid celebrities? What example does this show to our nation?
