Whatever you think of President Obama, the American taxpayer is getting him  cheap compared, say, with a predecessor like Franklin D. Roosevelt.

According to a document prepared for the President’s Committee on Administrative Management — that’s FDR, by the way — the nation’s Chief Executive was paid $75,000 in 1936. That translates to $1.28 million in today’s dollars. (No wonder he wanted to serve four terms.)

Mr. Obama (like every President since 2001) gets a measly $400,000, plus a $50,000 annual expense account, $100,000 in non taxable travel funds, and $19,000 for entertainment. That’s been the pay Congress set 13 years ago and the White House occupants, both of them, haven’t gotten a raise since.

Notice, too, that the president of General Motors (Alfred P. Sloan at the time) made $324,505 in  1936 — equivalent to $5.5 million today. (Meanwhile he was battling unionists in “the strike heard round the world” who were struggling to organize the auto industry for better pay and working conditions.)

http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/businesshistory/February/flint.html

The current (also embattled) CEO of GM, Mary T. Barra, gets a salary of $1.6 million plus incentive pay of $2.8 million, but with other boons may end up banking $14.4 million, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

But even at the (relatively) meagre pay, there are no shortage of eager aspirants  for the White House job.