I suppose we shouldn't begrudge our ex-Presidents a comfortable retirement. Spending 8 years with the awesome responsibilities of the President of the United States is something most of us would recoil from in horror.

But leave it to Bill Clinton to take advantage of the system and outdo all of his predecessors by digging in and helping himself to goodies at the taxpayer's expense:

The Clintons have made a $100-million fortune since leaving the White House, but a Politico analysis found that hasn’t kept Bill Clinton from taking full advantage of the publicly funded perks offered to ex-presidents.

In fact, his presidential retirement benefits cost taxpayers almost as much as those of the other two living ex-presidents combined. The price tag for Clinton’s federal retirement allowance from 2001 through the end of this year will run $8 million, compared to $5.5 million for George H. W. Bush’s and $4 million for Jimmy Carter’s during the same period. Since 2001,

Clinton has received more of almost every benefit available to former presidents — from his pension to his staff’s salaries and benefits to supplies. His $420,000 phone bill and $3.2 million office rent tab both nearly surpassed the totals rung up for those purposes by Bush, Carter and the late former presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan combined.

As a group, they spent $484,000 on telephone service and $3.8 million on rent in the same span.