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CNN Live At Daybreak

Ask CNN: Why Did President Bush Get a 100 Percent Raise?

Aired June 21, 2001 - 07:52   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A CNN viewer wants to know why did President Bush get a 100 percent raise?

CANDY CROWLEY, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: President Bush has a $400,000 per year salary. President Clinton before him had a $200,000 year salary, but it was President Clinton who enacted into law the budget which allowed the pay hike for whoever was sitting in the Oval Office.

Under existing law, a president cannot sign into law his own pay hike, so the increase could only apply to President Clinton's successor, which is, of course, President Bush.

It's the first presidential pay hike since 1969, so it's been more than 30 years since anyone sitting in the Oval Office has seen an increase.

There are a lot of people who point out that CEOs with less responsibility than the president get two, and three, and four times even the current salary of the president of the United States, and Congress thought, as of 1999, that it was well past time to give a pay hike to the president.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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