Taxpayers Pay Ex Presidents Expenses

We are paying $4 million dollars to keep up the former presidents. They charge offices, paper, rides, flights....to the former pres pension. I know that's not the name, but that's what it is.

For, instance, when they go somewhere, they take a cab, they take secret service, they fly, they stay in a hotel, and we pay for it.

Taxpayers started paying for offices, secretaries and travel for former presidents in 1958 when Harry Truman had to take out a bank loan to afford the cost of keeping up with requests for speaking engagements after he left office.

Jimmy Carter's net worth is $7 million. George HW Bush has about $23 million. Clinton is worth about $38 million and George W Bush has a net worth of $20 million. And they're still billing taxpayers for their expenses.

Last year, Carter received about $518,000. George HW Bush collected $830,000. Clinton's expenses were just short of $1.1 million and George W Bush's were $1.3 million.

These figures are on top of the  $200,000 a year and round-the-clock Secret Service protection. The bodyguard fees for the former presidents cost taxpayers about $20 million each year.

• Between 2001 and 2008, Clinton billed the government for $420,000 for his phone expenses, $3.2 million for rent in the office he keeps in Harlem in New York City and $751,000 for 'other services.'
• In 2009, Clinton's 8,300-square-foot Harlem office cost taxpayers $516,000. Carter's 4,200-square-foot office in Atlanta cost $102,000.
• George HW Bush's 4,600-square-foot Houston office cost $175,000.

The good news is there is a  bill in Congress that would cap spending at $200,000.