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Claim: John McCain would not be eligible to draw a pension after serving two terms as president.
A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year, until he is 80 years old.
Assuming the next president lives to age 80. Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after
two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension.
Therefore it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November.
Origins: We're not sure whether the above-quoted bit of electioneering about presidential pensions was meant to be taken seriously, or whether it was intended to be light-hearted or
sardonic, but regardless its basic premise is incorrect.
It is true in broad terms that since John McCain is twenty-five years older than Barack Obama (they'll be 72 and 47 years old, respectively, at the time of the next
presidential inauguration), the former would probably draw a smaller aggregate pension as a former president than the latter would. (There are no guarantees, of course, since we never know
what Fate might have in store for anyone.) It is not true, however, that if John McCain served two terms as president, he would draw no pension at all due to his having reached the maximum
age limit (80) by then. The pension payments allocated to former presidents are lifetime benefits and do not end or expire once a recipient reaches a particular age.