What do American presidents do when they leave office? Oval Office;
Many and various, one would say, as there is no trampled here.
Most people write bestseller books. The numbers here are scary. Bill Clinton, for example, made $ 15 million from his autobiographical "My Life."
George W. Bush raised $ 7 million for the first 1,5 million copies of Decision Points. As for the prolific Jimmy Carter, he has already published 14 books.
According to historian James Thurber, an expert on American presidents, the Ομπάμα lives richly from the sales of his books alone.
Still others secure particularly lucrative arrangements for lectures at universities or high-level advisory roles in institutions. In fact, if we talk about speeches, Bill Clinton remains king here.
When he left the White House in 2001, the Greater Washington Association of Executives paid him $ 125.000 for a speech. This remains the standard amount usually paid for a speech by a former president.
"I never had any real money before I left the White House," Clinton told CNN in 2010, "but since then I have done quite well." How well;
By 2012, he had made $ 75,6 million from lectures given to universities and private companies, according to assets that his wife was forced to disclose. Hillary as US Secretary of State.
Four years later, the Clinton couple had raised more than $ 235 million since they left the White House.
According to a Washington Post revelation that year (2016), Clinton had earned $ 17,6 million as honorary rector of Laureate International Universities.
The Center for Public Integrity estimates that George Bush has earned more than $ 15 million from speeches alone since leaving Washington.
The speeches remain the heavy artillery on the incomes of the former presidents. And sometimes the amount of their earnings even causes scandal.
As happened in 1989, when Ronald Reagan, when he left the White House, took $ 2 million for two speeches in Japan, then the pharmaceutical financial enemy of the United States.
Eventually forcing his successor, George W. Bush Sr., to comment somewhat indifferently: "Everyone has to live somehow."
Still others set up non-profit organizations to continue the charitable work they undertook during their presidency.
The position of the former planetary ruler is a jealous office and what the former president has to say afterwards touches many and concerns more.
Still others continue to earn income from their work. A typical case here is the 27th President of the USA, William Taft (1909-1913), who after his tenure in the White House revived his judicial career and even became the 10th Chief Justice of the USA.
But Gerald Ford also stands out here, who after his presidency sat in innumerable authorised meetings corporate giants and was richly paid as a consultant.
After their tenure in the highest office in the country, however, do presidents work because they want to or because they have to?
Being president of the United States is a job that pays well, $ 400.000 a year to be exact.
Presidential allowances have even increased significantly over time. During the presidency Harry Truman in 1949, the president was paid $ 100.000 a year.
When Nixon became a White House resident in 1969, earnings rose to $ 200.000. It remained at that number for 30 years, until Congress doubled its presidential allowance in 2001, when George W. Bush took over the reins.
Of course, the president does not pay for anything. He travels in the presidential limousine, the Marine One and the A and lives in Washington's most famous mansion.
According to Law of Former Presidents, an amendment passed in 1958, not a few of the privileges enjoyed by White House residents when they leave Washington.
Former presidents are entitled to a lifetime pension and separate funds for travel, office rent, health care and personal expenses. But how much are these benefits?
The US Treasury Department is now paying a $ 200.000 annual life sentence to former President Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Donald Trump will also join the state program after his recent resignation from office.
If the former president dies before his wife, his widow is entitled to a total annual pension of $ 20.000, as well as several other benefits, whether financial aid or imperfections.
Even widows are entitled to lifelong protection from the Secret Service, as long as they do not remarry.
Going back to the former presidents, they enjoy a number of privileges. The federal government is obliged to pay for the offices they maintain and their equipment, the staff they employ and whatever supplies they need on a monthly basis.
The Government Services Administration even reimburses them for every expense they make related to their travels or work. Even the move by him White House is secured free of charge.
But how much do they get for all this? There is no approved amount here, it has to do with the living expenses of the former president.
In 2010, for example, the Congressional Research Service found that Carter's Atlanta office cost taxpayers $ 102.000 a year, while the annual fee for George W. Bush's office in Houston was $ 175.000.
As for Bill Clinton's New York office in the expensive neighborhoods of Manhattan, it sucked the state coffers by $ 516.000 a year. These are only for rent, as there are special funds for equipment, maintenance and staff, also without setting a maximum amount.
Special mention may be made of the protection enjoyed by former presidents, as it is financially one of the most expensive sums spent on them. Every former president is entitled to lifelong federal protection Secret Service (USSS), both he and his wife and children (under 16).
In what numbers does this amount climb? We will say it a little differently. In 1985, 11 years after resigning from the US presidency, Richard Nixon decided to relinquish his right to lifelong protection from the Secret Service.
The reason was obvious, he wanted the state not to waste so much money for his sake. He could pay for bodyguards on his own, as he had stated, his protection did not need to burden the taxpayer.
Then the people learned that the Secret Service detachment that accompanied them day and night cost $ 3 million a year.
Nixon remains the only former president to deny free state protection. Even more striking, his wife, Pat, did the same a year before him.
Ο Nixon only saint was not of course. The fact that he decided to resign after the Watergate scandal was not out of directness. But just so as not to lose the privileges of the former president.
He knew that if his referral to the Senate was fruitful, he would not be entitled to any benefits. The law of 1958 is clear here, if the president is removed from office by resignation, then he does not get one in terms of financial gain.
Nixon, however, managed to resign before being fired, and the Justice Department ruled that he continued to enjoy the privileges enjoyed by former presidents. He remains the only US president to ever step down.
As for Clinton's adventure with his own reference, his privileges as former president were not threatened because he was acquitted during his presidential persecution.
But there was also a president who, while picking up his things from the Oval Office, realized that he was literally the ace. So poor that he had to take out a loan to survive in this transitional period.
It was Harry Truman in 1953. He was about to make a living by earning a meager $ 112,56 a month in the military, as he would not be serving in the highest office to make money.
The 33rd president of USA, a truly honest and integrity man, was determined not to redeem his role in the White House. According to biographer David McCullough, he turned down any job offers.
The Miami real estate giant gave him "no less than $ 100.000" for a seat on his board. Truman said "no" even to gifts like that new Toyota.
"I could not make any deal, however respectable, that would lead to the commercialization of the prestige and dignity that emanate from the presidency," Truman himself would later write.
So he returned to Missouri to live with his wife in his mother-in-law's house. He taught once in a while at universities and continued to refuse any job offer or well-paid consulting role. And so he fought financially.
In fact, during his presidency he had passed a law for life pension to MPs and senior judges, except that the federal pay package did not include presidents.
At one point he made a lucrative deal for a two-volume book he wrote (published in 1955 and 1956) and got $ 670.000, but had to pay back 2/3 in taxes. He estimated that he had $ 37.000 left when he paid his assistants.
In 1957 he told his political and good friend John McCormack: "If I did not have a property to sell that my brother and sister inherited from our mother, I would be living on social benefits. "But this sale has made me not ashamed financially."
Harry Truman could not even answer the letters he received with the sack, because he did not have money for so many stamps. Everyone knew about the difficult economic situation in which the former US president lived.
And so next year Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, giving him $ 25.000 in annual compensation. We now know that Dwight Eisenhower, the president who ratified the law, had Truman in mind and the hardships he experienced after his tenure in the White House.
The only other former president alive in 1958 was Herbert Hoover, who also received state compensation when he clearly did not need it.
He would later say that he accepted her just so as not to embarrass Truman…