The official Obama collapsing thread

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by mostpost

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that Obama knows the difference between debt and deficit.

He may know, or at least some of his advisers should, but he certainly doesn't seem to care. He expresses concern about leaving a huge debt for future generations, and then he and his minions are proud of themselves for keeping the addition to the debt to under half a trillion dollars.

And it would have been a lot more than that if he had his way. And if he had a Democratic Congress.

Not that the Republicans come anywhere near anything resembling fiscal responsibility. They think that slowing down the rate of increase in government spending is being thrifty.

[davew]

impressive deficit cuts there mostdippost

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by mostpost

There will be no increase to the annual individual pension of former presidents. I can't say if the amount they are allocated for staff and travel etc. will be increased. I'd say that is unlikely given that the proposed increase was 17.9% and the increase in former presidents will be 25%.

The pensions of former presidents are set according to the salaries of current cabinet members. This is due to the Former Presidents Act of 1958. As I understand it, right now, cabinet secretaries make about $202,000 a year.

The current budget for former president pocket change is over $3 million. Obama is asking for another half million added to the kitty. With former presidents raking in millions in book sales and speaker fees, this seems excessive. Bush and Clinton have each been sucking over $1 million a year out of the fund, and I'm sure Obama envisions dipping his fingers into the pie too.

http://www.ijreview.com/2016/03/5643...-presidents-2/

[Tom]

Originally Posted by mostpost
I would be willing to bet a lot of money that Obama knows the difference between debt and deficit.

I would bet the SS has to tell him every morning what NOT to shine his shoes with.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by Clocker

The current budget for former president pocket change is over $3 million. Obama is asking for another half million added to the kitty. With former presidents raking in millions in book sales and speaker fees, this seems excessive. Bush and Clinton have each been sucking over $1 million a year out of the fund, and I'm sure Obama envisions dipping his fingers into the pie too.

http://www.ijreview.com/2016/03/5643...-presidents-2/

As I said before, all of this is covered under the Former Presidents Act of 1958.
Here are the highlights of that act as found on wikipedia.
By law, former presidents are entitled to a pension, staff and office expenses, medical care or health insurance, and Secret Service protection.

Pension[edit]
The Secretary of the Treasury pays a taxable pension to the president. Former presidents receive a pension equal to the pay that the head of an executive department (Executive Level I) would be paid, as of 2015 $203,700 per year.[4] The pension begins immediately after a president's departure from office.[5] A former president's spouse may also be paid a lifetime annual pension of $20,000 if they relinquish any other statutory pension.[1]

Transition[edit]
Transition funding for the expenses of leaving office is available for seven months. It covers office space, staff compensation, communications services, and printing and postage associated with the transition.[1]

Staff and office[edit]
Private office staff and related funding is provided by the Administrator of the General Services Administration. Persons employed under this subsection are selected by and responsible only to the former president for the performance of their duties. Each former president fixes basic rates of compensation for persons employed for him (or her), not exceeding an annualized total of $150,000 for the first 30 months and $96,000 thereafter.[1]

Medical insurance[edit]
Former presidents are entitled to medical treatment in military hospitals; they pay for this at interagency rates set by the Office of Management and Budget. Two-term presidents may buy health insurance under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program; a GSA legal opinion ruled Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush ineligible.[1][6]

Secret Service protection[edit]
Former presidents were entitled from 1965 to 1996 to lifetime Secret Service protection, for themselves and spouses and children under 16. A 1994 statute, (Pub.L. 103–329), limited post-presidential protection to ten years for presidents inaugurated after January 1, 1997.[7] Under this statute, Bill Clinton would still be entitled to lifetime protection, and all subsequent presidents would have been entitled to ten years' protection.[8] On January 10, 2013, President Barack Obama signed legislation reinstating lifetime Secret Service protection for himself, George W. Bush, and all subsequent presidents.[9]

Richard Nixon relinquished his Secret Service protection in 1985, the only president to do so.[10]

Personally, I don't care how much a former President makes from speeches, or personal appearances, or consulting. Any man who has served this country as President deserves the benefits as described in The Former Presidents Act of 1958, regardless of how much money he is making.

The money appropriated for the 2017 budget is 00.000008433743494% of the federal budget for 2017. I don't even know how to say that.

[Tom]

So mostie, all that crap is nothing but a law.
Why should we obey a law when YOU support ignoring the CONSTITUTION?

Here's a thought, and it applies to all of them - SCREW the ex-presidents.
Let ALL of them go out and live, ON THEIR OWN, in the country they left US to live in. Screw them ALL. Not red cent for ANYTHING. SS included. THEY can live under the same security we live under, - state police, local cops.......nothing more unless THEY pay for it.

Screw them all.

[Clocker]

Libs trying to defend the "Obama legacy" remind me of the last Japanese soldiers, years after WWII was over, living in caves on little Pacific islands, fighting on and refusing to surrender or accept the truth.

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by Tom

Here's a thought, and it applies to all of them - SCREW the ex-presidents.
Let ALL of them go out and live, ON THEIR OWN, in the country they left US to live in.

Bill Clinton has only made about $127 million in speaker fees since leaving office, so he really needs that $1 million a year he is still sucking out of the public trough. Because he was flat broke when he left the White House.

[Tom]

I had heard he was morally bankrupt as well.

[Clocker]

Sinking lower and lower:

[VigorsTheGrey]

Originally Posted by Clocker

Sinking lower and lower:

A picture of the forward looking change these "progressives", ie, communists, have in mind for us all is the bland beehive edifice that looms behind them with the picture of Che on it....A token of the Cult of the Leader...in a long line of them....Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc, etc....
Pick out your space in the bland beehive now.....follow the leaders, always follow the leaders! They know what is best for you and I!

[VigorsTheGrey]

Originally Posted by Clocker

Sinking lower and lower:

It doesn't get more Orwellian than this......The bland beehive building is the Ministry of Truth....Big Brother is portrayed here as "Che" and Obama is a type of inner party member, O'Brian?, standing at attention with other inner party members....Cuba, now just another province of the Superstate, Oceania...It is all there for anyone to see....The United States is not a Republic or a Democracy...it is now an integral part of Oceania...

[reckless]

Originally Posted by Clocker

Bill Clinton has only made about $127 million in speaker fees since leaving office, so he really needs that $1 million a year he is still sucking out of the public trough. Because he was flat broke when he left the White House.

Clock, of course I get your point but I'm not so sure sex predator, rapist, and impeached president Bill Clinton was actually 'flat broke' as he and Hillary! claim.

The despicable Clintons did steal pots and pans, kitchen utensils, various sundries and assorted toiletries, stinky and stained bed sheets, glassware and coffee pots plus numerous kitschy odds and ends from the White House that were legally the property of the American citizen and taxpayer.

But did anyone really expect anything less from the 'trailer trash' Clintons?

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by reckless

Clock, of course I get your point but I'm not so sure sex predator, rapist, and impeached president Bill Clinton was actually 'flat broke' as he and Hillary! claim.

Are you implying that the Clintons, America's Family, would ever speak anything other than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth???

Not only were they flat broke, but they had to make the payments on the mortgages on all their houses.

[VigorsTheGrey]

Originally Posted by VigorsTheGrey

It doesn't get more Orwellian than this......The bland beehive building is the Ministry of Truth....Big Brother is portrayed here as "Che" and Obama is a type of inner party member, O'Brian?, standing at attention with other inner party members....Cuba, now just another province of the Superstate, Oceania...It is all there for anyone to see....The United States is not a Republic or a Democracy...it is now an integral part of Oceania...

I looked up the building in the background and it is the Cuban Governments Ministry of the Interior and Communication.

"An interior ministry (sometimes ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government ministry typically responsible for policing, emergency management, national security, supervision of local governments, conduct of elections, public administration and immigration matters. The ministry is often headed by a minister of the interior or a minister of home affairs." Wikipedia


The equivalent Ministry in Orwell's 1984 is the Ministry of Love or MiniLuv, so I stand corrected....But how appropriate that this photo of part of the global inner party should be taken in front of Miniluv....the place where Winston Smith was tortured in Room 101 for being a thought criminal....What message does this send to global elites and the general public?