Everyone would love to be as “broke” as the Clinton’s…
Via Fox News:
Former President Bill Clinton has received nearly $16 million in taxpayer funds since leaving the White House, covering everything from his pension to personnel to benefits — and renewing questions over how much taxpayers really should spend on ex-presidents who make millions after leaving office.
A new Politico report and analysis examined the payments since he left office in 2001, and claimed it amounts to more than any other ex-president has received. Meanwhile, Politico points out, Clinton has a personal annual income that beats all the other living former presidents. His $15 million advance — then a record — for his 2008 memoir was just a sliver of his earnings. According to reports he’s made more than $106 million in speaking fees alone since 2001.
Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also has earned millions in speaking fees — and released a memoir, for which she reportedly got a $14 million advance, last year. In the first 16 months after leaving Foggy Bottom in 2012, she made at total of $12 million in personal income, according to Bloomberg.
This is a far cry from the picture of destitution that lawmakers feared might face ex-presidents if they did not pass the Former Presidents Act in 1958. Many former commanders-in-chief were in fact personally wealthy, but some were not.