Speaker 1: Welcome to Factory Fiction History Stuff for the History buff
Speaker 1: on how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm editor Candice gifts Into. I'm I'm I
Speaker 1: guest staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, Candice, how's it going
Speaker 1: pretty good? How are you? I am gearing out for
Speaker 1: my Christmas shopping. I always like to do it early
Speaker 1: and beat the crowds. Oh, you're better than me. Well,
Speaker 1: I was thinking what sort of job could I have
Speaker 1: that would give me carte blaunched just by just whatever
Speaker 1: I want? And I was thinking the more powerful you are,
Speaker 1: typically the more money you make. That. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what about the most powerful man in the in the country,
Speaker 1: in the free world, the the US President. He must
Speaker 1: have just, you know, tons of money to work with,
Speaker 1: you would think, you would think, And then I was
Speaker 1: really surprised to find out that's not the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not exactly. Presidents make uh. Now, it's about four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand a year, which I mean in scope comparatively in
Speaker 1: the private sector, it's not that much. It's not that great.
Speaker 1: I guess it's not. I mean, to me, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of them,
Speaker 1: but considering his position, yeah, considering everything he has to do,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like that much. And like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: in the private sector, Bush is actually or he was
Speaker 1: actually part owner of the Texas Rangers and he sold
Speaker 1: that a couple of years ago and I think he
Speaker 1: earned like fourteen point nine million dollars for it. And
Speaker 1: then Cheney is also independently wealthy. I think his net
Speaker 1: worth is around thirty million. And yet again four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and then the vice president's salary is two
Speaker 1: hundred eight thousand, one hundred dollars and telling him of
Speaker 1: the president salary, that hasn't always been the case. Obviously
Speaker 1: gets changed throughout the years to accommodate with for inflation
Speaker 1: and stuff, but it actually gets changed very often. Um,
Speaker 1: the last time was changed, Uh, Clinton actually made two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. But before that, like it hadn't been changed
Speaker 1: since about sixty nine, So it was about thirty years
Speaker 1: of the president went without a pay increase. Yes, they're
Speaker 1: in sixty nine. It was a hundred thousand, and then
Speaker 1: Clinton signed legislation back in for the increase to occur
Speaker 1: I think in two thousand one, and that's an important
Speaker 1: caveat the president can't increase his own salary when he's
Speaker 1: in office, that's right, And that's a little different. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you look at Congress for instance, Congress can actually
Speaker 1: raise their own salaries, and that's a pretty popular vote.
Speaker 1: You would imagine, Yeah, I can't imagine anyone saying no
Speaker 1: to that. And for important and obvious reasons, we see
Speaker 1: why the president can changes in salary. But um, the
Speaker 1: first lady we've talked about before, she has no salary,
Speaker 1: but she gets a pension when her husband is out
Speaker 1: of office. It's twenty tho dollars a year, which you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of meager, especially in comparison to your
Speaker 1: retired president's pension of hundred fifty thousand. And then he
Speaker 1: also gets another hundred fifty thousand to maintain his staff.
Speaker 1: And you can even go back like people ask like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money to me. So do we
Speaker 1: really have to pay the president that much? I mean,
Speaker 1: shouldn't he be in the job to be a good
Speaker 1: public servant to to the public and the actual The
Speaker 1: Framers actually considered this, and they thought, like they actually considered,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the possibility of giving legislators or
Speaker 1: presidents no salary. But if that were the case, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it wouldn't really attract um people from the
Speaker 1: private sector who are talented, talented people and they're skilled,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't bring them over and attract them to
Speaker 1: politics in that life. That's a great point, especially if
Speaker 1: you think about the fact that it takes millions of
Speaker 1: dollars to even campaign for the office. That's true. If
Speaker 1: someone wanted to run for president and there were no
Speaker 1: salary for the president, wo would have to save up
Speaker 1: money and you know, really be independently wealthy in order
Speaker 1: to hold that office. And it's funny these days, because
Speaker 1: you know, we would like to see equality, we'd like
Speaker 1: to see a you know, a really sort of fair,
Speaker 1: even keeled person in the White House. And not many
Speaker 1: of us who I'd get all up in arms for
Speaker 1: someone who was incredibly independently wealthy was making promises to
Speaker 1: help out middle of the road Americans. It would seem
Speaker 1: like a big disparity. That's true. That's true. And and
Speaker 1: Framers actually considered that it would actually insent the politicians
Speaker 1: to seek out corruption. I mean, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: corruption isn't possible today even with their salaries. But but
Speaker 1: making no salary, they would certainly want to seek guilt
Speaker 1: underhanded ways to do that. So I guess another argument
Speaker 1: would be that if the president had no salary, he
Speaker 1: or she would still have an expense account, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that says something. And the president does have an expensive
Speaker 1: is free home and board exactly gets free and board
Speaker 1: and at which is a pretty nice place to have
Speaker 1: free board, not at all. And the vice president's houses
Speaker 1: and too shabby either, very nice. Oh gosh, this this
Speaker 1: gorgeous Victorian mansion. I'm kind of in love with it
Speaker 1: because the more staid in the White House. But as
Speaker 1: far as their expense accounts go, that's pretty generous to
Speaker 1: the president gets fifty thou dollars and expenses, a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for travel, and the nineteen thousand for entertainment,
Speaker 1: and again, pretty sweet little package. And the vice president
Speaker 1: gets ten thousand dollars and expenses. So and we knew
Speaker 1: that entertain meaning. It may sound frivolous. A nineteen dollars
Speaker 1: may sound like an awful lot of money for entertainment,
Speaker 1: but it's really important. It's diplomatic, it's about protocol. It's ceremonial.
Speaker 1: It's really necessary for Washington. And that's true, and especially
Speaker 1: considering UH, presidents have to bring around foreign diplomats and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and so they don't want to get
Speaker 1: off the impression that America is poor. So considering that
Speaker 1: some of the people who go on to become president
Speaker 1: are so independently wealthy, we really do have to staff
Speaker 1: and look at a couple of historical examples and see
Speaker 1: exactly why people would choose to do that. That's right,
Speaker 1: and there are there are a few examples of people
Speaker 1: who were wealthy before they entered into politics, and you
Speaker 1: you know, you questioned, like why would they why would
Speaker 1: they like sacrifice a salary like a private sector salary,
Speaker 1: And you look at the examples there um Andrew Jackson,
Speaker 1: for one, Herbertover and uh lbj are examples that they
Speaker 1: got a lot of money before going into politics. And
Speaker 1: Hoover is actually an interesting case. He was actually, you know,
Speaker 1: orphaned at a young age and he sort of rags
Speaker 1: the richest story. He um, he was able to make
Speaker 1: his way into Stanford and get an engineering degree and
Speaker 1: he he uh the next few years, like I guess
Speaker 1: through the nineteen tenth and nineteen twenties. He actually got
Speaker 1: a lot of private will through mining engineering, which doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like it would it would get you a lot
Speaker 1: of money, but at the time that was the that
Speaker 1: was the position to be in. So it's funny that
Speaker 1: you should mention people who make the act of decision
Speaker 1: to go into politics, because on the exact opposite end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum you have people who are born into
Speaker 1: nobility and unlike the US president, monarchs stay on the
Speaker 1: throne until they die, and the US president, well, that's
Speaker 1: not the case either. He served one term for four
Speaker 1: years or two terms for eight years and then it's over.
Speaker 1: It put something kind of an awkward position. It does.
Speaker 1: It does. It's so funny, and it's almost like a
Speaker 1: mother watching her son get married and then she's not
Speaker 1: quite sure like how much she can she can interfere
Speaker 1: and say, um, I think you need to be doing this,
Speaker 1: or I think you need to be styling your hair
Speaker 1: in this way, or I don't really like that's you
Speaker 1: pricked out. That's how I can see of the ex president,
Speaker 1: of course on a much more important scale, and George
Speaker 1: Washington really set the president for the ex president and
Speaker 1: I have to recommend a book for you guys. It's
Speaker 1: called Second Acts Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House.
Speaker 1: And I think this book does such a fantastic job
Speaker 1: of explaining the strange role of the ex president or
Speaker 1: the post president. Really, and the idea that George Washington
Speaker 1: came up with was undone with politics. I'm gonna go home.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a gentleman farmer and if anyone
Speaker 1: needs me in Washington, well, they never to find me,
Speaker 1: and they did need him. And so he went back
Speaker 1: and with a lot of grace and dignity, he served
Speaker 1: another military role and then he went back home and retired.
Speaker 1: And I think that before Truman's time, on average, the
Speaker 1: ex presidents lived about eleven years after they finished the office,
Speaker 1: and today it's more like fifteen years. And again that's
Speaker 1: an average. Someone like Jimmy Carter is still going strong,
Speaker 1: like really really strong, that's right, And he's still making
Speaker 1: differences in the public spot late at least, and in
Speaker 1: promoting future presidents. Yeah, exactly. And I think that the
Speaker 1: ex presidents they make a careful decision about how they
Speaker 1: want to spend their retirement. And I think that today
Speaker 1: even more than in the past. It's important for them
Speaker 1: to be seen and they can fill a diplomatic post
Speaker 1: or they can fill a political post, and there's something
Speaker 1: that's really powerful and that creates a resonating feel of unity.
Speaker 1: When you see a bunch of ex presidents altogether, you
Speaker 1: get the senset. There's still a lot of confidence in
Speaker 1: that in that role, and there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: satisfaction of well, I played this out. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny talking about taking pride and serving that position.
Speaker 1: My favorite ex president ever, Thomas Jefferson. On his tombstone,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even say that he was President of the
Speaker 1: United States. That wasn't something that he took as much
Speaker 1: pride in as founding the University of Virginia, which he
Speaker 1: did after his presidency, helping to draft the Declaration and
Speaker 1: the Statute of Religious Freedom in Virginia. Uh. Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: also had a really interesting post presidency. He was so
Speaker 1: popular and so young that he could have easily want
Speaker 1: a second term, but he chose not to run again
Speaker 1: and instead he recommended Taft to the position, and he
Speaker 1: did win and he was president. But then Teddy came
Speaker 1: back and he was like, I'm not so happy with
Speaker 1: what the things are going. So he ran again, and
Speaker 1: he actually split the Republican Party ticket at that point
Speaker 1: between himself and Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson got in,
Speaker 1: which is probably a good thing because of the diplomacy
Speaker 1: he was able to extend during his administration. But you
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of presidents doing that generally when
Speaker 1: they're done with the office. They're kind of done and
Speaker 1: they don't really advise at that point, Like you said,
Speaker 1: they have a ceremonial presence more than anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of nice. You mentioned that that you see
Speaker 1: ex presidents together, and often that happens to be presidents
Speaker 1: that are both Republican and Democrat. It's kind of nice
Speaker 1: to see the bipartisan, you know, and bearing of the
Speaker 1: ex sort of thing exactly. And again with Thomas Jefferson,
Speaker 1: my favorite, he in one of his political um allies
Speaker 1: turned enemies, John Adams. They were, oh my goodness, they
Speaker 1: were in communicator for years and then after they both
Speaker 1: finished the presidency, I think they were sort of a
Speaker 1: quiet understanding between them, and they had this correspondence back
Speaker 1: and forth over the years, and then they ended up
Speaker 1: dying on the exact same day to Lie four six.
Speaker 1: And I think John Adams said that his only consolation
Speaker 1: on his deathbed was knowing that his friend Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: lived and you know, ha ha, he didn't. But but
Speaker 1: the office also takes a physical toll on presidents too,
Speaker 1: that's right. And if you look at like I imagine
Speaker 1: like Nixon, for instance, had had some hard times there
Speaker 1: in the last in the last months of his presidency,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that took a toll on him. But
Speaker 1: also if you look at perhaps Um Reagan, he uh
Speaker 1: he maybe weren't wasn't haggard after office because of political reasons,
Speaker 1: but the country watched as his health were degenerated and
Speaker 1: he suffered from Alzheimer's and he started forgetting you know,
Speaker 1: even the fact that you was president, And it's pretty said,
Speaker 1: it is, And even to flashback to someone like FDR
Speaker 1: and his health conditions, it's hard to see your country's
Speaker 1: leader incapacitated like that. But the fact that his mind
Speaker 1: was sharp enough to lead the country, I think is
Speaker 1: a really really powerful thing. It's true. So if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about presidents past, present, and future,
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