6 months before he leaves office, Obama nixes a bill to trim ex-presidents' pay

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

last updated 23 July 2016

In just the 11th veto of his time in office, President Obama on Friday rejected the "Presidential Allowance Modernization Act of 2016," a bill which would have capped former presidents' expense accounts at $200,000 a year and phased out presidential pensions for former executives who independently make at least $400,000 annually.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the veto was issued out of concern that the bill would "immediately terminate salaries and all benefits to staffers carrying out the official duties of former presidents" and require the government to "immediately terminate leases, and remove furniture."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.