An ex-president may select the staff employed under this act, and the total budget for such hires is $150,000 per year during the former president’s first 30 months out of office, and then $96,000 per year thereafter. The Former Presidents Act also funds office space and a modest staff for one-time chief executives. According to the New York Times, Trump’s businesses are losing valuable contracts because of the former president’s increasingly toxic brand, and hundreds of millions of dollars in loans are about to come due. Trump’s name has long been associated with garish opulence, but he may soon need this pension to meet basic expenses. Now presidents receive a pension “equal to the annual rate of basic pay, as in effect from time to time, of the head of an executive department” - currently about $219,000. The Former Presidents Act of 1958 originally set the presidential pension at $25,000. Congress changed that, in large part due to embarrassment over the fact that former President Harry Truman had little income beyond a military pension for many of his early years out of office. Until the late 1950s, former presidents received no pension after leaving office. Here are the perks that Trump stands to get as an ex-president. That said, the Former Presidents Act is an act of Congress that can be amended, so Congress likely could strip Trump of the perks he enjoys as an ex-president. Under the Former Presidents Act, an ex-president is entitled to the law’s benefits if their presidency “ shall have terminated other than by removal.” Thus, because Trump served his entire term, he likely would be entitled to a pension. For the most part, these perks remain available to Trump even if he is convicted by the Senate in a still-pending impeachment trial. Yet, while Trump is now a private citizen just like any other American, he does enjoy certain valuable perks as a former president. At noon on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump’s term expired, and he was stripped both of the powers of office and of the immunity from federal prosecution that comes with it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |