Obama’s Post Presidency $400,000 Speech Could Prompt Congress to Go after His Pension

MY PERSONAL BELIEF IS THAT ALL GOVERNMENT PENSIONS EXCEPT THOSE IN MILITARY SHOULD BE DONE AWAY WITH, INCLUDING CONGRESS …

Following Barack Obama’s $400,000 speech, Congress may pass legislation to cap presidential pensions. A bill like this had been previously introduced in 2016 in the House by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and in the Senate by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. However, with no opposition last year in the Senate or House or threat of presidential veto, at the last minute Obama vetoed the bill. Imagine that. Talk about self-serving. Why would Obama have vetoed such a bill? Hopefully this will pass the Congress once again and President Trump will sign it. If not, the American tax payers will be providing a pension to a billionaire by law.

Of course Congress should pass a similar bill on themselves as well.

And I am still bleeding the tax payer …

Last year, then-president Barack Obama vetoed a bill that would have curbed the pensions of former presidents if they took outside income of $400,000 or more.

So now that former president Barack Obama has decided to accept $400,000 for an upcoming Wall Street speech, the sponsors of that bill say they’ll reintroduce that bill in hopes that President Trump will sign it.

“The Obama hypocrisy on this issue is revealing,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and sponsor of the 2016 bill. “His veto was very self-serving.”

Chaffetz and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the sponsor of the companion Senate bill, say they will re-introduce the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act this month. The bill would cap presidential pensions at $200,000, with another $200,000 for expenses. But those payments would be reduced dollar-for-dollar once their outside income exceeds $400,000.

The issue isn’t a partisan one — or at least, it wasn’t last year. The bill passed both the House and Senate with no opposition, and no veto threat had come from the White House.

So when Obama’s veto came one Friday night last July — on the last day for him to sign or veto the legislation — it took lawmakers by surprise. It was the 11th of Obama’s 12 vetoes.

My personal belief is that all pensions should be done away with, except for the men and woman of our military. It is a means of payment that is long since obsolete. If presidents want to go on the speaking tour and some company is ignorant enough to pay $400K, so be it. However, the American people should never have to foot the bill of a pension of millionaires. That goes for Congress also. These positions were never intended to be a full time job forever. That is never what The Founders envisioned.

“The basic premise here is, if they want to go fishing in Utah for the rest of their lives, they can do that. They will be well compensated for the rest of their lives,” Chaffetz said. “If they’re going to make millions of dollars, the taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize them.”

Why are the American people paying pensions to millionaires? Who honestly thinks this makes any sense, no matter what political party the former president belongs to. Who thinks the Bush’s are hurting for money? How about the Clinton’s?

Under the Former Presidents Act, the nation’s five living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama — get a pension equal to the salary of a current cabinet secretary: $207,800 in 2017. They also get $150,000 to pay staff, and “suitable office space, appropriately furnished and equipped.”

In 2015, the entire benefit package ranged from $430,000 for Carter to $1.1 million for George W. Bush.

With Obama joining the club as of Jan. 20, the 2017 spending bill approved by the House Wednesday contained nearly $3.9 million for all the former presidents through Sept. 30 — a $588,000 annual increase.