The Truman Show
August 4, 2021 8:15 PM Subscribe
How the 33rd president finagled his way to a post–White House fortune — and created a damaging precedent. Ex-US Presidents are given pay and perks for life because poor Harry Truman left office skint - except he was lying, he was rich as hell, and he effectively stole the equivalent of half his salary from the US Gov each year in office. via
He kept hearing he was over-qualified.
posted by orange ball at 8:34 PM on August 4, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by orange ball at 8:34 PM on August 4, 2021 [16 favorites]
Top income tax bracket was over 90% back in the 50s. I'd like to see Truman's tax returns.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:52 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:52 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
“You know,” Truman told Murrow, “the United States government turns its chief executives out to grass. They’re just allowed to starve.”
This more or less happened to Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was destitute and dying of throat cancer when he moved into a cottage owned by a wealthy friend and spent the last six weeks of his life writing his memoirs while sitting on the front porch of the cottage as a kind of living historical diorama, all while in great pain:
This more or less happened to Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was destitute and dying of throat cancer when he moved into a cottage owned by a wealthy friend and spent the last six weeks of his life writing his memoirs while sitting on the front porch of the cottage as a kind of living historical diorama, all while in great pain:
Grant Cottage State Historic Site is an Adirondack mountain cottage on the slope of Mount McGregor in the town of Moreau, New York. Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, died of throat cancer at the cottage on July 23, 1885. The house was maintained as a shrine to U.S. Grant following his death by the Mount McGregor Memorial Association and a series of live-in caretakers. The building became a New York State Historic Site in 1957 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.[2][3] The Historic Site was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 2021.[4]posted by jamjam at 8:58 PM on August 4, 2021 [41 favorites]
The cottage was originally owned by Joseph William Drexel, a New York banker and friend of Grant, and Grant would spend the last six weeks of his life there. Author and publisher Mark Twain gave Grant a $25,000 advance to write his memoirs; Grant completed the manuscript just three days before he died. During the next two years, sales of the work netted his family nearly $450,000 in royalties, saving his widow, Julia, from destitution. For decades after his death, thousands of Civil War veterans made a pilgrimage to this shrine outside Saratoga Springs. Thousands more visit Mt. McGregor annually to see the original artifacts preserved at this historic site.[2]
It gives a whole new meaning to his legendary sign inscribed
The Buck Stops Here.
posted by y2karl at 9:26 PM on August 4, 2021 [24 favorites]
The Buck Stops Here.
posted by y2karl at 9:26 PM on August 4, 2021 [24 favorites]
I think the part about pocketing the expense account money and not paying taxes on it is worse than the whole lying about being nearly destitute part. Had he not done that, he probably would have been, at least until the memoir money came in
I don't really take issue with the idea of giving ex-Presidents a pension and even office space. I do think the office space part is particularly ripe for abuse, however. You either get people deciding their office just has to be in a super-expensive location or doing like Trump and getting the government to prop up his business by paying to lease space he owns.
The pension itself isn't terrible in principle. Maybe that should be all they get, though. Size it appropriately to pay for the ancillary things including a normal level of Secret Service protection and let the ex-President decide whether a lavish office is really worth it or not. Given a fixed amount of yearly spend, it would be much less ripe for Trump-style grift and those who aren't straight up grifting might be encouraged to actually think about what they really need.
posted by wierdo at 10:21 PM on August 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
I don't really take issue with the idea of giving ex-Presidents a pension and even office space. I do think the office space part is particularly ripe for abuse, however. You either get people deciding their office just has to be in a super-expensive location or doing like Trump and getting the government to prop up his business by paying to lease space he owns.
The pension itself isn't terrible in principle. Maybe that should be all they get, though. Size it appropriately to pay for the ancillary things including a normal level of Secret Service protection and let the ex-President decide whether a lavish office is really worth it or not. Given a fixed amount of yearly spend, it would be much less ripe for Trump-style grift and those who aren't straight up grifting might be encouraged to actually think about what they really need.
posted by wierdo at 10:21 PM on August 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
One question the article leaves unanswered -
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
posted by meowzilla at 10:28 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
posted by meowzilla at 10:28 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Top income tax bracket was over 90% back in the 50s. I'd like to see Truman's tax returns.
I also cast doubt on the NY Mag story. If so it would repudiate David McCullough's Truman book and a whole host of other well regarded and well researched books -- and importantly how he lived. I'm not saying the article is wrong, it will take me awhile to digest it, but there's some big claims here.
The article does address some of my biggest doubts but puts a lot of emphasis on relative wealth which is exceedingly hard to do. I understand what the author is trying to say: that we are much richer now and the wealth gap is greater, ergo if Truman was as rich now as he was back then he'd be very rich. Take a much more recent example of Charles Barkley who recently said that he was not as rich as players are now, despite him being highly paid. This was in relation to whether or not gambling being legal would've impacted him, e.g., would he have thrown a game or who players have thrown games to win a bet. The answer was then maybe he would have but now players are making routinely $200million+ off 4 year contracts, no one would be willing to throw a game even at the lower levels for the kind of money an NBA player makes. That goes to show you the kind of logic the author makes in the article about relative wealth is very, very difficult to make not only in one person's lifetime but over the course of 15-20 years!
The author also notes that Truman made more than Joe DiMaggio (before big television contracts infiltrated sports), but far less than plutocrats. Then, like today, salary is a poor indicator of wealth. Ford would have been fabulously wealthy by today's standards at ~$3 billion in the late 1940s not adjusted for inflation. Suddenly Truman, a former president of a country that just won a World War, is not looking very wealthy at all. He's looking like a retired middle class baby boomer without the trappings that come with being an international figure in the Cold War (retired or not it notes he still had to deal with people).
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
This is the most damning. I also find it hard to believe that a figure that was enmeshed in corrupt political machines his entire life, presumably had access to money if he wanted to be corrupt, completely went unscathed except for pocketing expense accounts very late in his career? Someone went from completely pure as the driven snow to corrupt that late? Then spent his entire life living modestly and didn't have any money left over? And this was never uncovered by any biographer until now?
I'm not saying that Truman was the greatest president by any account, or was infallible, but accounting for money is notoriously hard. Meyer Lanksy went around telling people he had no money, no one believed him until he died poor and people still think he had millions laying around.
I'm somewhat willing to buy the premise he was rich and couldn't accept it after a lifetime of frugality but this article seems to rely solely on Truman's wife's papers. With some corroborating reporting I'll believe it, I just find it hard to believe no one uncovered this until now. And even his contemporaries believed him (Truman used to bash Hoover on the campaign trail so to say they weren't on good terms was to put it mildly, yet Hoover didn't want to embarrass Truman with the FPA). Some other expenses missing from the article: Truman needed office space in downtown Kansas City. he required at least one secretary out of his own pocket (briefly mentioned in passing in the article from a quoted Truman letter). etc.
Tax History.org provides some greater detail in some of his confusing finances which they put it eloquently, "Truman's proximity to the pinnacle reflected a compression of the rate structure." And then detail some of the things that seemed out of sorts, like why his book advances were reported in appendixes and where some of the money went and the " difficulty of being a poor man in a rich man's job."
posted by geoff. at 10:55 PM on August 4, 2021 [20 favorites]
I also cast doubt on the NY Mag story. If so it would repudiate David McCullough's Truman book and a whole host of other well regarded and well researched books -- and importantly how he lived. I'm not saying the article is wrong, it will take me awhile to digest it, but there's some big claims here.
The article does address some of my biggest doubts but puts a lot of emphasis on relative wealth which is exceedingly hard to do. I understand what the author is trying to say: that we are much richer now and the wealth gap is greater, ergo if Truman was as rich now as he was back then he'd be very rich. Take a much more recent example of Charles Barkley who recently said that he was not as rich as players are now, despite him being highly paid. This was in relation to whether or not gambling being legal would've impacted him, e.g., would he have thrown a game or who players have thrown games to win a bet. The answer was then maybe he would have but now players are making routinely $200million+ off 4 year contracts, no one would be willing to throw a game even at the lower levels for the kind of money an NBA player makes. That goes to show you the kind of logic the author makes in the article about relative wealth is very, very difficult to make not only in one person's lifetime but over the course of 15-20 years!
The author also notes that Truman made more than Joe DiMaggio (before big television contracts infiltrated sports), but far less than plutocrats. Then, like today, salary is a poor indicator of wealth. Ford would have been fabulously wealthy by today's standards at ~$3 billion in the late 1940s not adjusted for inflation. Suddenly Truman, a former president of a country that just won a World War, is not looking very wealthy at all. He's looking like a retired middle class baby boomer without the trappings that come with being an international figure in the Cold War (retired or not it notes he still had to deal with people).
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
This is the most damning. I also find it hard to believe that a figure that was enmeshed in corrupt political machines his entire life, presumably had access to money if he wanted to be corrupt, completely went unscathed except for pocketing expense accounts very late in his career? Someone went from completely pure as the driven snow to corrupt that late? Then spent his entire life living modestly and didn't have any money left over? And this was never uncovered by any biographer until now?
I'm not saying that Truman was the greatest president by any account, or was infallible, but accounting for money is notoriously hard. Meyer Lanksy went around telling people he had no money, no one believed him until he died poor and people still think he had millions laying around.
I'm somewhat willing to buy the premise he was rich and couldn't accept it after a lifetime of frugality but this article seems to rely solely on Truman's wife's papers. With some corroborating reporting I'll believe it, I just find it hard to believe no one uncovered this until now. And even his contemporaries believed him (Truman used to bash Hoover on the campaign trail so to say they weren't on good terms was to put it mildly, yet Hoover didn't want to embarrass Truman with the FPA). Some other expenses missing from the article: Truman needed office space in downtown Kansas City. he required at least one secretary out of his own pocket (briefly mentioned in passing in the article from a quoted Truman letter). etc.
Tax History.org provides some greater detail in some of his confusing finances which they put it eloquently, "Truman's proximity to the pinnacle reflected a compression of the rate structure." And then detail some of the things that seemed out of sorts, like why his book advances were reported in appendixes and where some of the money went and the " difficulty of being a poor man in a rich man's job."
posted by geoff. at 10:55 PM on August 4, 2021 [20 favorites]
I also cast doubt on the NY Mag story. If so it would repudiate David McCullough's Truman book and a whole host of other well regarded and well researched books -- and importantly how he lived.
One, it's worth noting that many of those historians did not have access to the Trumans' finances like Campos did, simply because they did their work prior to Bess Truman's passing.
Two, one major failing of American historians has been a willingness to distort the historical record in order to, in their eyes, "protect the Presidency". The best example of this is how the field actively hid the fact that Thomas Jefferson was, contrary to the public image he crafted, a brutal slaver rapist who turned to chattel slavery to rebuild his finances.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:06 PM on August 4, 2021 [16 favorites]
One, it's worth noting that many of those historians did not have access to the Trumans' finances like Campos did, simply because they did their work prior to Bess Truman's passing.
Two, one major failing of American historians has been a willingness to distort the historical record in order to, in their eyes, "protect the Presidency". The best example of this is how the field actively hid the fact that Thomas Jefferson was, contrary to the public image he crafted, a brutal slaver rapist who turned to chattel slavery to rebuild his finances.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:06 PM on August 4, 2021 [16 favorites]
As a historical fact about Truman, this is interesting. I admired a lot about Truman but he was clearly exceedingly bitter after he left office; ragging on Eisenhower for not getting him tax breaks is par for the course. (As the article points out, McCullough probably didn't have access to the financial info in his admiring biography.)
The somewhat vague hand wringing about office space for Obama and Clinton is less convincing to me.
I realize the article says this wasn't true, but I'm not getting what his argument was even if it HAD BEEN true. Couldn't he get a job? Surely a guy who was elected president and served as president would have some skills. Getting a job is the traditional way to get money, and the method politicians most frequently promote.
(1) Employers giving their employees a pension is not a bad thing. While the stint may be relatively short, the nature of the presidency means giving them a good working environment is not an option.
(2) Many presidents (including Truman) are well past retirement age when they leave office.
(3) Presidents have ongoing obligations most people don't have after they leave a term of employment.
(4) Removing the need to get a job reduces conflict of interest. I realize that sounds like a joke given the last inhabitant of the office, but I don't think we should plan for corrupt people to be the office holder.
I know the presidency is fairly rarified, so thinking in terms of employee rights and fair compensation isn't necessarily the first thing people jump to. But I really don't think it helps anyone--least of all workers--to assert we should use up our presidents and spit them out.
posted by mark k at 11:17 PM on August 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
The somewhat vague hand wringing about office space for Obama and Clinton is less convincing to me.
I realize the article says this wasn't true, but I'm not getting what his argument was even if it HAD BEEN true. Couldn't he get a job? Surely a guy who was elected president and served as president would have some skills. Getting a job is the traditional way to get money, and the method politicians most frequently promote.
(1) Employers giving their employees a pension is not a bad thing. While the stint may be relatively short, the nature of the presidency means giving them a good working environment is not an option.
(2) Many presidents (including Truman) are well past retirement age when they leave office.
(3) Presidents have ongoing obligations most people don't have after they leave a term of employment.
(4) Removing the need to get a job reduces conflict of interest. I realize that sounds like a joke given the last inhabitant of the office, but I don't think we should plan for corrupt people to be the office holder.
I know the presidency is fairly rarified, so thinking in terms of employee rights and fair compensation isn't necessarily the first thing people jump to. But I really don't think it helps anyone--least of all workers--to assert we should use up our presidents and spit them out.
posted by mark k at 11:17 PM on August 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
Couldn't he get a job?
I'd argue that it would be best if he were not allowed to be employed again. Doing favours while in office, and then sliding straight into a cushy corporate job is a form of baked-in corruption we tolerate in Australia for reasons that entirely escape me.
posted by pompomtom at 11:23 PM on August 4, 2021 [28 favorites]
I'd argue that it would be best if he were not allowed to be employed again. Doing favours while in office, and then sliding straight into a cushy corporate job is a form of baked-in corruption we tolerate in Australia for reasons that entirely escape me.
posted by pompomtom at 11:23 PM on August 4, 2021 [28 favorites]
I don't really take issue with the idea of giving ex-Presidents a pension and even office space. I do think the office space part is particularly ripe for abuse, however. You either get people deciding their office just has to be in a super-expensive location or doing like Trump and getting the government to prop up his business by paying to lease space he owns.
What and with all that office space at Los Alamos going fallow? Drain the swamp
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:13 AM on August 5, 2021
What and with all that office space at Los Alamos going fallow? Drain the swamp
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:13 AM on August 5, 2021
I noted Bess Truman's contribution in my original comment but the article wasn't clear on what exactly came from her as net new versus what we knew. I'm not trying to discredit Campos, or say he's acting in bad faith, but if you're making big claims you have to back it up with big facts. Here is the paper with annotations and footnotes.
It appears the tax returns and Bess Truman's released tax returns were actually accounted for in my original TaxHistory.org link. That summary was much more clear in my opinion.
Note on the NYMag comments section there's a very good comment that has the same problems I have with the article on rereading it, namely that the author isn't clear with his use of numbers. We get unadjusted and adjusted inflation numbers and we aren't told exact time periods (life vs yearly) for some of the figures. His notes actually aren't much better I was hoping or expecting some harder figures.
I also went ahead and dug up what I could from the Truman Library (newly renovated!) and found that Bess Truman's correspondence is a staggering 103k+ documents. Series 3, the Financial Affairs File is where I'm guessing the important bits are. It seems incredibly extensive and not digitized unfortunately.
posted by geoff. at 12:19 AM on August 5, 2021 [8 favorites]
It appears the tax returns and Bess Truman's released tax returns were actually accounted for in my original TaxHistory.org link. That summary was much more clear in my opinion.
Note on the NYMag comments section there's a very good comment that has the same problems I have with the article on rereading it, namely that the author isn't clear with his use of numbers. We get unadjusted and adjusted inflation numbers and we aren't told exact time periods (life vs yearly) for some of the figures. His notes actually aren't much better I was hoping or expecting some harder figures.
I also went ahead and dug up what I could from the Truman Library (newly renovated!) and found that Bess Truman's correspondence is a staggering 103k+ documents. Series 3, the Financial Affairs File is where I'm guessing the important bits are. It seems incredibly extensive and not digitized unfortunately.
posted by geoff. at 12:19 AM on August 5, 2021 [8 favorites]
One question the article leaves unanswered -
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
Cocaine and weed
posted by NoMich at 6:13 AM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
Cocaine and weed
posted by NoMich at 6:13 AM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
Cocaine and weed
Only about half; he just wasted the rest.
posted by TedW at 6:19 AM on August 5, 2021 [13 favorites]
Cocaine and weed
Only about half; he just wasted the rest.
posted by TedW at 6:19 AM on August 5, 2021 [13 favorites]
Considering he was OK with incinerating tens of thousands of Japanese civilians alive, some financial improprieties don't seem like much of a stretch.
posted by TedW at 6:27 AM on August 5, 2021
posted by TedW at 6:27 AM on August 5, 2021
I realize the article says this wasn't true, but I'm not getting what his argument was even if it HAD BEEN true. Couldn't he get a job? Surely a guy who was elected president and served as president would have some skills. I realize the article says this wasn't true, but I'm not getting what his argument was even if it HAD BEEN true. Couldn't he get a job? Surely a guy who was elected president and served as president would have some skills.
The argument, as I understand it, is that you don't want a former president doing menial work (would look really bad to have the previous head of state fixing flats) but you also don't want them using their cachet as a former president to have people throw money at them for delivering a speech or sitting on a corporate board--it's damaging to the office to have people using their time as prez to open up the corporate vaults and let the money flow in, plus you don't want influential ex-presidents cozying up further to already powerful business interests. I am very sympathetic to this position, and think that it would be a really good idea to pass a law saying that former presidents get the generous pension we have established but no other income at all. You can write a book if you want, but all the profits go straight to the federal treasury. And, of course, you would also have to divest yourself from all your business interests when you become president, never to re-acquire them. No passing them to kids, either. Sell off your stake in everything.
Don't like it? Don't run for president. Such a law would still keep a generous pension in place for anyone who makes it to the presidency having only modest wealth, but would require the ultra-rich to make a real sacrifice to hold the office. Might improve the quality of our candidates.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:50 AM on August 5, 2021 [32 favorites]
The argument, as I understand it, is that you don't want a former president doing menial work (would look really bad to have the previous head of state fixing flats) but you also don't want them using their cachet as a former president to have people throw money at them for delivering a speech or sitting on a corporate board--it's damaging to the office to have people using their time as prez to open up the corporate vaults and let the money flow in, plus you don't want influential ex-presidents cozying up further to already powerful business interests. I am very sympathetic to this position, and think that it would be a really good idea to pass a law saying that former presidents get the generous pension we have established but no other income at all. You can write a book if you want, but all the profits go straight to the federal treasury. And, of course, you would also have to divest yourself from all your business interests when you become president, never to re-acquire them. No passing them to kids, either. Sell off your stake in everything.
Don't like it? Don't run for president. Such a law would still keep a generous pension in place for anyone who makes it to the presidency having only modest wealth, but would require the ultra-rich to make a real sacrifice to hold the office. Might improve the quality of our candidates.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:50 AM on August 5, 2021 [32 favorites]
If Truman accumulated this significant sum of money, but during post-presidency "lived a fairly modest life", where did it all go?
Margaret, presumably. People who get large unexpected amounts of money in a hurry run the gamut of either blowing it on moonpies and pennywhistles or hoarding it against their frail old age. The latter also tend to poor mouth.
It's not as if he was squeaky clean up to the white house years. His wife was on his senatorial payroll before he was VP, enough for Clare Booth Luce to refer to her as Payroll Bess. (To be fair, Mrs T. appears to have been a good admin, which went into their personal finances as well. Still- expense accounts? Make of that what you will.)
The longer article as noted is more detailed and worth reading. Restores my faith in the natural order of the universe to learn that he was as duplicitous as any 20th century politician. I say that as someone who has cited the Truman Finance Story 1.0 in the blue, favorably contrasting him with more recent folk who have become breathtakingly rich on the back of presidential service. Wrong again! History, like science, turns on unexpected fresh evidence, which keeps it fun and interesting.
Doing favours while in office, and then sliding straight into a cushy corporate job is a form of baked-in corruption we tolerate in Australia for reasons that entirely escape me.
In America, we do book deals. And charitable foundations.
posted by BWA at 6:59 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Margaret, presumably. People who get large unexpected amounts of money in a hurry run the gamut of either blowing it on moonpies and pennywhistles or hoarding it against their frail old age. The latter also tend to poor mouth.
It's not as if he was squeaky clean up to the white house years. His wife was on his senatorial payroll before he was VP, enough for Clare Booth Luce to refer to her as Payroll Bess. (To be fair, Mrs T. appears to have been a good admin, which went into their personal finances as well. Still- expense accounts? Make of that what you will.)
The longer article as noted is more detailed and worth reading. Restores my faith in the natural order of the universe to learn that he was as duplicitous as any 20th century politician. I say that as someone who has cited the Truman Finance Story 1.0 in the blue, favorably contrasting him with more recent folk who have become breathtakingly rich on the back of presidential service. Wrong again! History, like science, turns on unexpected fresh evidence, which keeps it fun and interesting.
Doing favours while in office, and then sliding straight into a cushy corporate job is a form of baked-in corruption we tolerate in Australia for reasons that entirely escape me.
In America, we do book deals. And charitable foundations.
posted by BWA at 6:59 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
That sounds an awful lot like the arguments the Catholic Church used to justify the vows of celibacy and poverty that priests take, Pater Aletheias. It hasn't exactly done wonders for their candidate pool there, so I don't see how it would improve the Presidential candidate pool.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:04 AM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:04 AM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
The argument, as I understand it, is that you don't want a former president doing menial work (would look really bad to have the previous head of state fixing flats)
Personally, I kind of think that would be awesome. Also, considering the country's reverence for Cincinnatus, it feels like that outcome should be compatible with the American mythos.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:34 AM on August 5, 2021 [11 favorites]
Personally, I kind of think that would be awesome. Also, considering the country's reverence for Cincinnatus, it feels like that outcome should be compatible with the American mythos.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:34 AM on August 5, 2021 [11 favorites]
I say that as someone who has cited the Truman Finance Story 1.0 in the blue, favorably contrasting him with more recent folk who have become breathtakingly rich on the back of presidential service. Wrong again!
I bought this too! I even remember reading about how he took a road trip with Bess in an ordinary car all by himself, stopping at Howard Johnsons or some damn thing just like any other elderly couple. What a miser.
Too many of our political laws and norms make the assumption that elected officials will be good men, or at least gentlemen, willing to play by the rules. Ideally, we would make a lot of overhauls to close this loophole, starting with a requirement that candidates release their income tax returns. I don't see Congress having the political will to do that, though.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:46 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I bought this too! I even remember reading about how he took a road trip with Bess in an ordinary car all by himself, stopping at Howard Johnsons or some damn thing just like any other elderly couple. What a miser.
Too many of our political laws and norms make the assumption that elected officials will be good men, or at least gentlemen, willing to play by the rules. Ideally, we would make a lot of overhauls to close this loophole, starting with a requirement that candidates release their income tax returns. I don't see Congress having the political will to do that, though.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:46 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
Countess Elena: or at least gentlemen, willing to play by the rules.
The rules for gentlemen have never been the same as the rules for the rest of us...
posted by clawsoon at 8:11 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
The rules for gentlemen have never been the same as the rules for the rest of us...
posted by clawsoon at 8:11 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
you don't want a former president doing menial work (would look really bad to have the previous head of state fixing flats)
Jimmy Carter builds houses, and we rightly love him for it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:15 AM on August 5, 2021 [25 favorites]
Jimmy Carter builds houses, and we rightly love him for it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:15 AM on August 5, 2021 [25 favorites]
Habitat for Humanity isn’t really the same thing as “We Pay Cash For Houses - Call Joe B!”, though.
posted by zamboni at 8:24 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 8:24 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
Truman was put in place by the Pendergast machine. He didn't become corrupt, he started that way.
And I'm supposed to like Harry. My in-laws are from Independence. They were neighbours of the Trumans, and one of them got a city political role entirely unrelated to that. Heck, the chair in the front room not three arm's lengths from me is, according to family lore (and photographs), is one that HST would sit in (and sometimes nap in) when he and Beth visited.
posted by scruss at 9:49 AM on August 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
And I'm supposed to like Harry. My in-laws are from Independence. They were neighbours of the Trumans, and one of them got a city political role entirely unrelated to that. Heck, the chair in the front room not three arm's lengths from me is, according to family lore (and photographs), is one that HST would sit in (and sometimes nap in) when he and Beth visited.
posted by scruss at 9:49 AM on August 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
I am very sympathetic to this position, and think that it would be a really good idea to pass a law saying that former presidents get the generous pension we have established but no other income at all
Eh, I don't think a law will cut it. The Trump presidency has more than convinced me the president is too powerful of a position for one person to hold and also very difficult to make accountable and watch over. And former presidents gaining money is just another side effect of having an enormously powerful presidency.
So, I think the solution is just to make the office less powerful, then there will be less power and influence for a former president to use to trade on and a less powerful president will be easier to watch over too.
posted by FJT at 10:22 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Eh, I don't think a law will cut it. The Trump presidency has more than convinced me the president is too powerful of a position for one person to hold and also very difficult to make accountable and watch over. And former presidents gaining money is just another side effect of having an enormously powerful presidency.
So, I think the solution is just to make the office less powerful, then there will be less power and influence for a former president to use to trade on and a less powerful president will be easier to watch over too.
posted by FJT at 10:22 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Ironically, the modern day power of the Presidency has little to do with changes in the law, but is almost entirely the result of Congress effectively ceding its own power because nukes. There's also a side order of fuckery involving who exactly gets picked to be a Supreme Court justice helping to cement the new order and thwart every attempt to bring the executive to heel.
posted by wierdo at 10:31 AM on August 5, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 10:31 AM on August 5, 2021 [10 favorites]
Truman was put in place by the Pendergast machine. He didn't become corrupt, he started that way.
While "the machine" may have been corrupt, the article actually paints Truman in a pretty good light: bipartisan, interracial, religiously diverse, and he "established a reputation for independence and fighting corruption by awarding road contracts to the lowest bidder, even if that company was a competitor to Pendergast-owned companies."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:37 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Couldn't he get a job?
He was a few months shy of turning 69 when he left office, and this was in the postwar era when the idea of retirement at 65 was baked into the system pretty thoroughly; some thirty years later Walter Cronkite retired from the anchor desk the year he turned 65, although he lived to age 92.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:01 PM on August 5, 2021
He was a few months shy of turning 69 when he left office, and this was in the postwar era when the idea of retirement at 65 was baked into the system pretty thoroughly; some thirty years later Walter Cronkite retired from the anchor desk the year he turned 65, although he lived to age 92.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:01 PM on August 5, 2021
> I don't see Congress having the political will to do that, though<
Only if most of them had no designs on running for that spot... so I agree, NOT going to happen.
posted by twidget at 1:14 PM on August 5, 2021
Only if most of them had no designs on running for that spot... so I agree, NOT going to happen.
posted by twidget at 1:14 PM on August 5, 2021
But, what Scruss said.
I grew up in KC, (Kansas Suburb side), and my dad, who had fought against the mob and the Pendergasts long before I was born, never had a good word to say about Truman. This article doesn't contradict his views.
posted by Windopaene at 2:57 PM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I grew up in KC, (Kansas Suburb side), and my dad, who had fought against the mob and the Pendergasts long before I was born, never had a good word to say about Truman. This article doesn't contradict his views.
posted by Windopaene at 2:57 PM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Next you'll tell me the founding fathers everyone says died penniless were secretly millionaires.
posted by pwnguin at 3:37 PM on August 5, 2021
posted by pwnguin at 3:37 PM on August 5, 2021
The current legend here, next door to the "Truman Little White House," in Key West, is that the presidents of his day were required to pay for all of the "entertainments of foreign ambassadors and guests at the White House," out of their presidential salary. They cite a couple or three examples of parties which would easily have required $50,000.00 dollars in 1940's dollars to host the dignitaries, including lodgings and security (notably lax in those days.) It wouldn't take many social events to eat all of the president's salary for a year, and that was the treatise he presented - social events representing the US took every penny he earned as POTUS, and he went home having gained nothing for the job.
It was left to Congress to decide and approve what would be alloted. The fact that he recouped his losses and went on to enjoy a "lavish" lifestyle in the plains (not the Hamptons; his mother-in-law's home) seems pretty economically justified in his case. Eisenhower was a notorious skinflint as well, and retired to middle America with his military pension, and his Presidential maintenance money.
LBJ was a multi-millionaire before taking office thanks to Lady Bird, and probably thought the presidential retirement stipend was an insult.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:39 PM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
It was left to Congress to decide and approve what would be alloted. The fact that he recouped his losses and went on to enjoy a "lavish" lifestyle in the plains (not the Hamptons; his mother-in-law's home) seems pretty economically justified in his case. Eisenhower was a notorious skinflint as well, and retired to middle America with his military pension, and his Presidential maintenance money.
LBJ was a multi-millionaire before taking office thanks to Lady Bird, and probably thought the presidential retirement stipend was an insult.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:39 PM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
I bought this too! I even remember reading about how he took a road trip with Bess in an ordinary car all by himself, stopping at Howard Johnsons or some damn thing just like any other elderly couple.
Howard Johnsons was a very special treat for middle class Americans well into the 70's. Kind of like how sliced bread and processed cheese were amazing. You brought out the block of Velveeta cheese when you had important guests. Things that are markers for being poor now had very different meanings in the past.
posted by srboisvert at 3:12 AM on August 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Howard Johnsons was a very special treat for middle class Americans well into the 70's. Kind of like how sliced bread and processed cheese were amazing. You brought out the block of Velveeta cheese when you had important guests. Things that are markers for being poor now had very different meanings in the past.
posted by srboisvert at 3:12 AM on August 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Srboisvert, I was born in 1946, and I would say going to HJs then was on a par with going to Chipotle now: one, maybe two, steps above the cheapest option. The thrill of having bread pre-sliced had totally waned.
IIRC, Clinton's office is/was in an existing federal office building in Harlem.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:13 AM on August 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
IIRC, Clinton's office is/was in an existing federal office building in Harlem.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:13 AM on August 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Truman is a bit more revered in my family, because I grew up in his hometown.
I went to visit my newborn sister in the hospital (Dec'72). Truman was on his deathbed a couple floors up.
posted by readyfreddy at 12:20 PM on August 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I went to visit my newborn sister in the hospital (Dec'72). Truman was on his deathbed a couple floors up.
posted by readyfreddy at 12:20 PM on August 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
the article actually paints Truman in a pretty good light: bipartisan, interracial, religiously diverse
Jews weren’t allowed as guests in the Truman household so fuck that noise.
“ He often called New York City “kike town”; he referred to his Jewish partner, Eddie Jacobson, as his “Jew clerk” and he wrote to Bess about someone in a poker game who had “screamed like a Jewish merchant”.
Deliver us from Christians who confuse tolerating each other’s denominations with actual religious tolerance.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:29 AM on August 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
Jews weren’t allowed as guests in the Truman household so fuck that noise.
“ He often called New York City “kike town”; he referred to his Jewish partner, Eddie Jacobson, as his “Jew clerk” and he wrote to Bess about someone in a poker game who had “screamed like a Jewish merchant”.
Deliver us from Christians who confuse tolerating each other’s denominations with actual religious tolerance.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:29 AM on August 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
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I realize the article says this wasn't true, but I'm not getting what his argument was even if it HAD BEEN true. Couldn't he get a job? Surely a guy who was elected president and served as president would have some skills. Getting a job is the traditional way to get money, and the method politicians most frequently promote.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:29 PM on August 4, 2021 [23 favorites]