© Getty
Yes, defund the ridiculously large staff that currently earns upward of $1.5 million a year serving Michelle Obama; abolish the federally funded bully pulpit from which the presidential spouses have historically advocated for healthy eating, literacy, child welfare, anti-drug programs, mental health issues and beautification of highways. The president's spouse isn't a specimen of American royalty. By giving her a federal budget and nonstop press coverage, we endorse a pernicious kind of neo-nepotism that says, pay special attention to the person not because she's earned it or is inherently worthy of our notice but because of who she's related to by marriage.
The hairstyles, fashion choices, vacation destinations and pet projects of the president's spouse are newsworthy only to the mentally vacant. Other democracies, such as the United Kingdom, bestow no such honors upon the spouses of their leaders and are better for it. To use an au courant phrase, the office of the first spouse is a swamp in need of draining. Won't somebody please dispatch a dredger to the East Wing?
My beef isn't against Melania Trump, the next first spouse, who seems to be a poised, harmless individual. I actually started composing this column in my head when the election of Hillary Clinton seemed inevitable. We already give mega-millionaire Bill Clinton a huge payout to run and staff his office under the federal Former Presidents Act. He's collected in excess of $16 million since 2001. Why, I thought, give him additional funding and staff as first spouse?
Obviously, first spouses have provided valuable advice for presidents over the centuries. Early first spouses edited and wrote speeches for the chief executive, campaigned for them, chaired government task forces and sold their political initiatives. Abigail Adams monitored public opinion for her husband. Millard Fillmore depended on his wife's counsel. Mary Lincoln placed obstacles in front of people whom she disliked and wanted a place in her husband's Cabinet.
Some contemporary presidential spouses have led active, involved political lives, providing more than a sounding board. Woodrow Wilson's second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, served as a sort of shadow president when her husband was diminished by a stroke. (Critics called her administration the "petticoat government.") Eleanor Roosevelt published books, magazine articles and newspapers advocating positions that routinely outwinged her husband, especially on civil rights. She testified before Congress. She had a regular radio program. She gave regular news conferences. She toured the country in support of migrant workers. Hillary Clinton actually worked on health policy for her husband, to great failure.
But does any of this work require a staff of 15 or more? The spouses of senators and corporate chiefs provide advice and speechwriting help for their husbands and we don't give them a budget or lavish them with attention. What's so special about the first spouse that we should give them $1.5 million in mad money to serve as hostess and confidante, White House remodeling consultant, supervisor of china?
Even when it comes to the serious political work, Roosevelt did what she did with a staff of two and probably could have done without. If the first spouses' causes are so admirable, the president should propose them and get the government to fund them via official channels instead of building a publicity machine for his spouse to advance them.
Certainly, there are worse government excesses, but I can't think of one. According to a 2011 PolitiFact piece, Michelle Obama has a staff of about 25, roughly the same size as Laura Bush's. Hillary Clinton's staff oscillated between 13 and 19. Nancy Reagan had about 15 people working for her, and one account puts Rosalynn Carter's staff at about 21, so it's not as if the office is fattening like an unkillable federal program. The real problem with the office of the first spouse isn't that it's large but that it exists at all. Nobody elected the first spouse. The voters owe her no more than they do the children, siblings and uncles of the president.
If the first spouse wants a forum for her views, there are ample nonofficial places for expression. As far as I'm concerned, she can write books and columns, speak at events and even run for office. I'm not even opposed to the first spouse volunteering at hospitals or raising funds for humanitarian organizations. Or she can do like Jill Biden did, and find a job and work. Or she can embrace leisure during her White House years. One reason to pull for Howard Dean for president in 2004 was that his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean, appeared to have little interest in playing queen to his king should he have won. According to reports, she planned on remaining in Burlington, Vermont, so she could continue to see her patients.
The office of the first spouse is a rancid barrel of presidential pork that has outlived its usefulness. Melania Trump would do us all a great service if she told her husband she had better plans for the next four years—resuming her modeling career or raising her son, Barron, for example—than hectoring us about the menace of cyberbullying, her self-choice topic or serving a ceremonial function at media events.
Abolish the office of the first spouse! Free Melania Trump!
"staff that currently earns upward of $1.5 million a year serving Michelle Obama"
And all I've heard about her in these 8 years were complaints from children about their bug-infested, rotten school lunches.