Opinion of lifetime Secret Service protection for former Presidents

[Nichlemn]

Obama recently signed a law reinstating lifetime Secret Service protection for former Presidents after it was cut to 10 years after leaving office in 1994.

IMO this is a pretty wasteful policy, especially with the budget crisis as it is now. Sure, it makes sense to protect the incumbent President, but once the President is out of office there isn't any great social benefit to doing so. So it's mostly just a perk, but it's a perk I highly doubt the former Presidents value at anywhere near the cost to the government (the article claims it to be in the "tens of millions of dollars a year" per President). How many people have really been scheming to kill (say) Jimmy Carter since 1991 anyway? And even if there have been one or two, is it really enough that a private bodyguard wouldn't be sufficient for?

[Nichlemn]

Limited protection for VPs, but I think POTUSs need lifetime protection. We cannot allow an easy target for terrorists.

Is there any precedent anywhere for long-since retired politicians being assassination targets? And even if there some, surely it's much less than present-day politicians and recently retired ones.

[Nichlemn]

Limited protection for VPs, but I think POTUSs need lifetime protection. We cannot allow an easy target for terrorists.

Is there any precedent anywhere for long-since retired politicians being assassination targets? And even if there some, surely it's much less than present-day politicians and recently retired ones.

There was an assassination attempt on George H. W. Bush when he was visiting Kuwait a couple of years after leaving office.

It was the same year he left office (1993). It's understandable that former leaders might face reprisals when the memory is still fresh. But over a decade later?

[Nichlemn]

It's really not that big of a cost, anyway. If the former President wants it, he should get it.

Why not give the President a larger pension and let them decide if they want to hire security or not? You could even let them hire the Secret Service. But I'm guessing they wouldn't hire anywhere near the same level of security if it was their own money to allocate.

About the only reason I can think of for why they shouldn't have this choice is that it might change the incentives of Presidents while in office, being selfishly concerned with maximising their own security by avoiding making enemies. But then again, this might be more of a feature than a bug if you think that the US already makes too many enemies.