Reply #8: Oh yeah... [View All]

[Captain Hilts]

Others didn't live as grandly as the Roosevelts. Money was always a problem and his mother was always glad to give because it kinda kept her in control. Whereas Eleanor realized the costs of this money and began to express her desire that the kids go to public schools in Hyde Park and that they attend public universities rather than Harvard and FDR said, 'no', and so forth. When she needed money she had to ask him, then he'd ask his mother. For this reason she began writing magazine articles in the 1920s for money.

In the White House money is weird. There are certain things that get charged to the government...when you can and cannot use the franking privilege, and so forth. When you eat on the Govt's dime and when you pay for your own meal. What you can keep and what you cannot. It's really complicated.

Other presidents, I think Truman for one, have said you come out poorer than you went in. That's no longer the case, obviously, because speeches around the globe are so lucrative.