Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 
 
 Last October, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz was so excited about continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton in her new role as president that he couldn’t help but gush to the Washington Post. “It’s a target-rich environment,” Chaffetz said. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.” 
 
 Then, of course, Donald Trump was elected and the Utah Republican found himself with very little to do (though many, including his colleagues on the Oversight Committee, asked him to probe the new president’s many business conflicts). Soon Chaffetz grew restless, and last month he announced that he may leave before the end of his term. Then, a week ago, he said he actually had to leave immediately to undergo surgery for a 12-year-old foot injury, and may not return to Congress for some time. 
 
 But Chaffetz, who’s still using a wheelchair, is already back in Washington, since GOP leaders are having a hard time rounding up enough votes to gut Obamacare and its protections for people with preexisting conditions. And though he’s still recovering, Chaffetz suddenly seems fired up about presidential oversight — when it comes to Barack Obama. 
 
 The former president has taken flak for accepting $400,000 to deliver a Wall Street speech in September, and USA Today reported on Wednesday that Congress may go after Obama’s $207,800 annual pension. 
 
 “The Obama hypocrisy on this issue is revealing,” Chaffetz told the paper. “His veto was very self-serving.” 
 
 The oversight chair then tweeted out the headline and a link to the story, with the note, “Yes, it will.” 
 
 Obama's $400,000 speech could prompt Congress to go after his pension https://t.co/h17muKPMmE via @USATODAY Yes, it will — Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) May 4, 2017 
 
 To be fair, Chaffetz has been interested in limiting benefits for former presidents for some time, and the issue has bipartisan support. In 1958, Congress passed a law giving ex-presidents a pension and money for staff and office space after Harry Truman had to take out a loan, sell property, and publish his memoirs to support himself. Thanks to the paid-speaking circuit, today no former president is at risk of going broke, and last year Congress sent President Obama legislation, sponsored by Chaffetz, that would reduce payments to former presidents once their outside income exceeds $400,000. 
 
 Obama surprised Congress by vetoing the legislation last summer. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained at the time that he was worried that the bill “would immediately terminate salaries and all benefits to staffers carrying out the official duties of former presidents — leaving no time or mechanism for them to transition to another payroll.” Earnest said Obama wanted to reform presidential pensions and would sign the bill if Congress made “technical fixes.” Lawmakers didn’t submit new legislation or attempt a veto override. 
 
 President Trump hasn’t taken an official position on the issue, but during the campaign he promised to “work on” reforming benefits for former presidents. 
 
 The spending bill that was just passed by the House, which keeps the government funded through September, provides $3.9 million for all the former presidents. It also allocates $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement for President Trump’s frequent trips to his private residences. 
 
 If Chaffetz can’t get his reform bill signed before he leaves office, there may be another solution: President Trump spends one less weekend at Mar-a-Lago, and we look the other way on Jimmy Carter’s lavish $430,000 benefit package. ||||| President George W. Bush poses with President-elect Barack Obama and former presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, on Jan. 7, 2009 in the Oval Office of the White House. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP) 
 
 WASHINGTON — U.S taxpayers provide former presidents with a pension of $203,000 a year — plus annual expenses that can add up to more than $1 million. 
 
 But most of them don't need the money, says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. He wants to reduce the pension to $200,000, and phase out expense allowances for former presidents who have outside income. 
 
 A bill he introduced this week would cap expenses at $200,000 a year. And once a former president makes more than $400,000 a year, that expense budget would be reduced dollar-for-dollar, eliminating it entirely for former presidents making more than $600,000. 
 
 "The basic premise here is, if they want to go fishing in Utah for the rest of their lives, they can do that. They will be well compensated for the rest of their lives," Chaffetz said. "If they're going to make millions of dollars, the taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize them." 
 
 The basic formula for paying former presidents has been unchanged since Congress passed the Former Presidents Act in 1958. Congress, moved by President Truman's complaints of financial difficulties, gave former presidents a pension equal to the salary of a cabinet secretary — currently $203,000 a year — for the rest of their lives. 
 
 But in modern times, former presidents have made a comfortable living writing memoirs, giving speeches and running foundations. According to a Washington Post analysis of personal financial disclosures, former President Clinton earned $104.7 million in speaking fees from the time he left office until 2013, the last year his wife had to file a disclosure as Secretary of State. 
 
 Chaffetz's bill would also increase the pensions of presidential widows from $20,000 to $100,000 — and updates the language to include widowers. "They've sacrificed a great deal, and they need to be taken care of as well," Chaffetz said. (The only current surviving presidential widow, Nancy Reagan, has waived her pension, though she was budgeted $7,000 for postage last year.) 
 
 Former presidents also get other benefits that wouldn't be impacted by the bill. They get health benefits, a Secret Service detail and unlimited postage for official correspondence. They may also get funeral and burial benefits. 
 
 Chaffetz has introduced the bill before, but it died in the last two Congresses. This time could be different. He has a Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, as a co-sponsor. And Chaffetz is now the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has jurisdiction. 
 
 "It will certainly make it out of committee. I can promise you that," Chaffetz said. 
 
 Follow @gregorykorte on Twitter. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1yxKkso ||||| CLOSE Former President Obama's pension could take a hit with his high-priced speaking engagements. USA TODAY 
 
 Former president Barack Obama visits with youth leaders at the University of Chicago to help promote community organizing on April 24 in Chicago. The visit marked Obama's first formal public appearance since leaving office. (Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images) 
 
 WASHINGTON — Last year, then-president Barack Obama vetoed a bill that would have curbed the pensions of former presidents if they took outside income of $400,000 or more. 
 
 So now that former president Barack Obama has decided to accept $400,000 for an upcoming Wall Street speech, the sponsors of that bill say they'll reintroduce that bill in hopes that President Trump will sign it. 
 
 "The Obama hypocrisy on this issue is revealing," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and sponsor of the 2016 bill. "His veto was very self-serving." 
 
 Chaffetz and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the sponsor of the companion Senate bill, say they will re-introduce the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act this month. The bill would cap presidential pensions at $200,000, with another $200,000 for expenses. But those payments would be reduced dollar-for-dollar once their outside income exceeds $400,000. 
 
 The issue isn't a partisan one — or at least, it wasn't last year. The bill passed both the House and Senate with no opposition, and no veto threat had come from the White House. 
 
 So when Obama's veto came one Friday night last July — on the last day for him to sign or veto the legislation — it took lawmakers by surprise. It was the 11th of Obama's 12 vetoes. 
 
 At the time, Obama argued that the bill would have "unintended consequences" and "impose onerous and unreasonable burdens" on former presidents by requiring them to immediately lay off staff and find new office space. 
 
 Republican leaders did not call up the bill for a veto override, which would have required a two-thirds majority in both chambers. 
 
 Democrats say they won't necessarily oppose changes. 
 
 Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on Chaffetz's committee, was a co-sponsor of the original bill. “Cummings definitely supports the concept, and if we can work out the technical issues with the bill that arose late in the last Congress, we expect he would strongly support it again," said spokeswoman Jennifer Hoffman Werner. 
 
 Trump has not taken a position on the legislation. But during the campaign, he said he'd take a close look at pensions for elected officials — especially members of Congress. 
 
 "The first thing I’m going to do is tell you that if I’m elected president, I’m accepting no salary, OK?" he said at a town hall in 2015. "They get benefits that nobody else can even think about, OK. And they don’t like to talk about it. But we’ll work on that." 
 
 Under the Former Presidents Act, the nation's five living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama — get a pension equal to the salary of a current cabinet secretary: $207,800 in 2017. They also get $150,000 to pay staff, and “suitable office space, appropriately furnished and equipped." 
 
 In 2015, the entire benefit package ranged from $430,000 for Carter to $1.1 million for George W. Bush. 
 
 With Obama joining the club as of Jan. 20, the 2017 spending bill approved by the House Wednesday contained nearly $3.9 million for all the former presidents through Sept. 30 — a $588,000 annual increase. 
 
 Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said the former president had no comment on the legislation. 
 
 Obama has already shown he has considerable potential to raise money in his post-presidential career. He and his wife Michelle have signed a publishing deal for two separate books, which the Financial Times reported was worth at least $65 million. And the Wall Street speech — a health care conference planned by investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald in September — will reportedly net him another $400,000. 
 
 "President Obama will deliver speeches from time to time," said Eric Schultz, a former White House spokesman who continues to advise Obama. "Some of those speeches will be paid, some will be unpaid, and regardless of venue or sponsor, President Obama will be true to his values, his vision, and his record." 
 
 Obama has said he also plans to use his post-presidency to work on a range of issues through his presidential center in Chicago. On Wednesday, he unveiled the design of that center and said he would donate $2 million to a summer jobs program for Chicago youth. 
 
 A spokesman for President George H.W. Bush said he does not oppose changes to the law, and expects that Congress will likely take some action. 
 
 "At age 93, he recognizes that any change to the act would have a greater impact on the other former presidents," said spokesman Jim McGrath. "For the sake of future occupants of the office, he does think some consideration should be given to the public role former presidents play — and we are told that very positive conversations addressing that and other matters have taken place." 
 
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– Jason Chaffetz had a concise response to a Wednesday USA Today headline, which read "Obama's $400,000 speech could prompt Congress to go after his pension": "Yes, it will." That speech, one Obama will make at a Cantor Fitzgerald conference, is earning him some heat, prompting Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight Committee, to pull up a bill Obama vetoed last summer that would've slashed ex-presidents' pensions once outside income hit $400,000. Chaffetz says Obama's veto of the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, which he and Senate sponsor Joni Ernst say they'll re-up later in May, was "self-serving," and the former president's "hypocrisy ... is revealing," per USA Today. At the time, Intelligencer notes, Obama said he was opposed to suddenly leaving staffers of ex-presidents in the lurch, though he would've been open to "technical fixes" in the bill. Former presidents now take home a $207,800 pension, plus $150,000 for staff and office space; other benefits also boost costs. Chaffetz's bill strove to cap the total at $400,000: a $200,000 pension, $200,000 for expenses, and a dollar-by-dollar reduction of that total once an ex-president earns beyond $400,000. If they "want to go fishing in Utah for the rest of their lives," they'll be "well compensated," Chaffetz said in 2015, per USA Today, but if they're going to rack up big bucks, "taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize them." No comment from a current Obama rep, though ex-White House spokesman Eric Schultz says any speech Obama gives will stay "true to his values, his vision, and his record"; President Trump has been mum. Pols on both sides of the aisle, however, seem open to such a measure, including Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, who co-sponsored the original bill. (Chaffetz is winding his governmental tenure down.)