- Post your tax returns for the past seven years as soon as you enter the primaries. Be 100% transparent with the American people.
- Pledge, beyond the shadow of a doubt that once elected, you will divest yourself of all investments putting them in an iron clad blind trust.
- Promise that after your term is complete and you are no longer running for office, you will live on your retirement income, presently listed at $207,800 a year and have no other income.
- When you retire, take a hint from President Carter and volunteer your time and encourage others to do the same.
- On that note, pledge that any income from book deals or speaking engagements, or endorsement will be automatically contributed to a list of charitable organizations, and list those organizations.
- When you are on vacation, bear in mind that the American people have generously provided you with the White House and Camp David, along with the fact that there are numerous federal public parks with lodging. Please limit your vacations to places like these and refrain from staying at the posh vacation estates of your wealthy donors. Be a president of the people, not a president of the donors.
- If you must tweet, tweet messages of inspiration and remember, if you can’t be kind, vague.
- Respect all the members of the press and answer all questions truthfully. A reply of “I’m not sure” or even “I can’t say” is perfectly acceptable, just do not lie.
- Be a servant to the people, be humble, wise, caring, patient, and above all else, honest.
- If you have a family, be faithful to your spouse and supportive of your children and also maintain boundaries. We elected you, not them.
Do this and whatever other comments might be added to this piece below, and it will make it easier for us, as Democrats, to demand a higher standard for all presidents to follow.
Please share widely!
I don’t agree with the limits on outside income post-presidency.
In a nation where wealth disparity has gone to such huge proportions with so many living from paycheck to paycheck while a chosen few live in godlike luxury, our elected officials and indeed, our president need to set examples for us all.
The American taxpayers, in gratitude for the service of the president, provides a retirement income that would be more than sufficient for any individual.
If a retired president wants even greater wealth, that president should, in the least, return the retirement payments and terminate any security services provided by the people, and pay their own way.
Are you suggesting that said previous President is making money that would otherwise go to somebody else? That’s doubtful since most of what he makes comes from having been President.
I am saying that we, as Democrats, need to set a higher standard that reflects the party and its pledge to fight against the massive wealth disparity that is tearing this nation in two.
Your proposal strikes me as mean-spirited, personal, and aimed directly at a specific ex-president and his wife. It has nothing to do with wealth disparity.
There is an alternative that more directly addresses wealth concentration that I am more than happy to demand that any Democratic Party nominee embrace:
1. Increase the gift and estate tax rate to something in excess of 90% for any estate whose total value is in excess of something like $3-5 M (feel free to adjust the specifics of the threshold).
2. Increase the long- and short-term capital gains tax rate to something in excess of 70% for annual gains of more than $3-5 M
3. Restore the rate of the top income tax bracket to something in excess of 70%
None of these three are new, and none of these require any extraordinary Constitutional heavy lifting. The existing rates and thresholds of these have each been set by post-Reagan GOP actions, and taken together have created the economic disaster that now afflicts 99.9% of Americans.
Taken together, they would be more effective than your third and fifth bullets at solving our obscene wealth and income concentration.
I agree with the rest of your bullets.
My post is not meant to be the remedy at solving our obscene wealth and income concentration. It is meant to give us a position of moral authority to take the steps that you so accurately listed and to attack Republicans who do not.
I don’t see that the two bullets in question provide any moral authority at all.
In my view, whatever moral authority we have emerges from the values and priorities that shape our campaigns , governance and elected leaders. The ex-presidents I can think of who were or are entirely lacking in moral authority (LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, George W. Bush, Donald Trump) would gain nothing by doing either of those things. I think that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will be trashed by their detractors no matter what they do in their retirement.
Of our ex-Presidents since 1964, only Jimmy Carter stands out as an icon of moral authority. I suggest that that moral authority emerges from the fiber of his soul, as do his choices about retirement and post-presidential income. I also note that he was singularly ineffective as President. I am reminded a bit of MLK, who was hated and reviled during life, and revered only after he was safely dead, buried and silenced. It’s a funny thing how the GOP politicians who attacked, harassed, and ultimately murdered MLK during life fall over themselves to honor him after his death.
I think moral authority is something we either do or do not have. It cannot be manufactured by fulfilling checklists.
Yes. Of course. But that check list can be something the voter uses at the polls to decide who to send to Beacon Hill or Washington D.C.
To quote former Senator Dan Wolf.,”If you want to change things on Beacon Bill, you need to do more than send a message, you need to send different people”. The same applies to Democrats. Just sending a “Democrat” is not the answer.
Maybe.
I think a voter is much more likely to be persuaded by a candidate that has already vigorously supported dramatic increases in the gift/estate tax and the top brackets of the capital gains and income taxes than a candidate who promises to forswear retirement income.
The most effective message we send to voters is what we do while we are in power. I suggest that Dan Wolf is not the most effective candidate for us to emulate in our search for our next President.
We can do both. Harry Truman’s only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence , Missouri . His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.
When he retired from office in 1952 his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an ‘allowance’ and later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me.. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.”
As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.
Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today , too many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale
It should be noted that the US government paid no pension to ex-presidents when Mr. Truman left office. Mr. Truman did not voluntarily refuse a pension. Secret Service protection was granted to ex-Presidents in the aftermath of the JFK assassination, in 1965.
Lifetime secret service protection was re-enacted by Barack Obama in 2012, restoring lifetime protection for George W. Bush and all future presidents.
I don’t see how exposing our ex-presidents to assassination gains any moral authority for them.
If we Democrats offer a candidate who has championed the three tax changes I enumerated, I will enthusiastically support him or her. I hope that our fellow Americans do likewise.
Wow, that’s quite a yarn you have spun. I’m all for protecting former presidents with services provided by the American taxpayers, however, if the president and his family members use the office as a revolving door for multi-million dollar book deals, speaking engagements and such, I think the president can well afford to pay for his own security.
If, however, the president wishes to remain a humble servant of the Republic and NOT used the office for personal reward, we should spare no expense in protecting that president.
No “yarn”, I was simply responding to your words (emphasis mine):
You seem to be doubling-down on your premise that exposing an ex-President to the threat of assassination should somehow be tied to financial decisions that meet your personal standard of moral purity.
I think every ex-President and his or her family is entitled to Secret Service protection.
My words, out of context and given special emphasis by another. Yes, that is the case here, isn’t it?
I do as well, providing that they are unable to do so adequately on their own.
How do you feel about the millions and millions that the American taxpayers are pay for the lavish vacations of the Trump crime family?
…here’s the thing.
Not all of those who voted for Trump in 2016 voted Republican in 2018. I would like to think that those individuals were the ones who were pissed off about the revolving door lobby system, the paid “speeches” and all the other avenues where so many elected officials cash in after serving in our government.
Trump promised to end that. Yes, he lied but that lie was caught too late. He said he was already rich! (he’s lying about that too, but I digress.)
The people who vote for him in 2016 heard Hillary Clinton announce that after she and bill left the White House “we were broke”
And then a few years later, with Bill’s presidential retirement and her salary as Secretary of State, they were suddenly worth $240 Million
Hillary said they were broke because of Chelsea’s education costs and Bill’s legal costs, and those are things that ordinary American working class citizens can relate to.
HOWEVER, ordinary working class Americans who punch a time clock or swipe a badge CANNOT relate to going from broke to $240 million in a few years. That sort of wealth stinks of corruption or in the least, reflects an economic system where working class citizens will never get ahead and only those with political power succeed because the system is rigged.
That is why, as Democrats, we need to run and elect better Presidents.
Does every interaction with you have to end with yet another litany of the long list of grudges you hold against the Clintons?
This thread has nothing to do with the Clintons.
Sorry, not taking the bait, Tom.
As I recall, given their legal fees they were in fact broke in the sense that their debts exceeded their assets.
Presidents should receive protection and a pension without judgement as to what they do with their lives once out of the White House.
I sincerely hope the Trump crime family will be investigated, prosecuted, and convicted of the many crimes they appear to have committed. I hope that their assets are forfeited and that each and every convicted family member including Mr. Trump himself is incarcerated for any crimes they are convicted of. That has nothing to do with any other ex-president — America has never before elected such a transparent felon and traitor.
I don’t think I took your words out of context at all. You provided a three paragraph homage to Mr. Truman that omitted key information. We know that Mr. Truman accepted his military pension. We know (although you don’t mention it) that no presidential pension was offered when Mr. Truman left office. The final sentence of your third paragraph seemed to hold him up as an example because he did not have Secret Service protection.
When I highlighted these two aspects of your commentary, you accused me of “spinning a yarn” When I pointed out that it was your own words I responded to, you claim I took those words out of context.
We apparently agree that ex-presidents should receive Secret Service protection. I disagree with the additional constraints that you propose.
But you seem to hold that presidents who use the office to feather their beds with millions and millions of dollars after serving still deserve it.
I do not agree with that.
I don’t join in your visceral hatred of the Clintons, no.
Sorry Tom, not taking the bait.
One day ago, in one thread, you write:
A day later, you write this:
Those two assertions are contradictory. From the rest of you commentary, your first seems to be the most correct — your bullets are aimed at attacking a specific ex-president, and “are not meant to be the remedy at (sic) solvig our obscene wealth and income concentration”.
I’m perfectly content with a nominee who demonstrates a commitment to the three policy changes I enumerated. You apparently are not.
Maybe I should have emphasized the “the” in the first remark, as I did not mean for the suggestion to be the one and only remedy, just one of many.
Bernie would never agree with this.