No longer do retiring presidents live on modest means. There is cash to be made in the years beyond the Oval Office.

Ex-presidents of the United States, once considered elder statesmen, may now be the successors to professional athletes, rock stars and Hollywood celebrities, shamelessly exploiting their celebrity status for cash – at least if they follow the example set by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

U.S. presidents are paid $400,000 a year, and provided room, board, travel, a vacation retreat and other perks while in office. Afterward, they receive a pension of almost $200,000 a year. It’s a comfortable and dignified way to ride into the sunset, unless, of course, they’re greedy.

Following her loss to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton asked her former rival’s help in paying off a $30 million campaign debt, which included over $11 million she personally loaned her campaign.

Where, you may ask, did she get $11 million to lend in the first place?

The Clintons never made big bucks prior to 2001. Bill Clinton was paid well, but not extravagantly, as a public office holder, while Hillary earned a respectable income for over a decade as a private attorney in a Little Rock law firm.

Neither, however, was on the road to riches. In fact, Hillary later characterized the infamous Whitewater land deal and her controversial investments in cattle futures – which mushroomed into scandals that plagued her husband’s presidency – as innocent attempts to build a modest family nest egg during Bill’s tenure as Arkansas governor.

When President Clinton’s second term drew to a close, the First Family’s net worth was actually reported to be in the red by about $4 million, with estimated legal debts of $5.5 million (incurred fighting Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s protracted investigation, and congressional impeachment proceedings) exceeding assets of $1.5 million.

Nonetheless, before leaving the White House, the Clintons had sufficient confidence in their economic future to buy a $1.7 million-dollar home in the affluent New York City suburb of Chappaqua, financed by a $1.35 million mortgage loan.

Over the past eight years, according to the Clintons’ income tax returns – reluctantly made public by Hillary Clinton during her presidential primary run – the couple earned $109 million, placing them in the top one-hundredth of one percent of all taxpayers.

This incredible infusion of wealth came mainly from the activities of Bill Clinton, who hit the speakers’ circuit with gusto, pocketing fees of six figures per appearance and grossing almost $52 million. He also earned substantial income from business ventures and consulting.

In addition, both Clintons wrote best-selling autobiographies, their sales spurred by the public’s appetite for salacious tidbits about the Monica Lewinsky affair. Bill’s 2004 “My Life” garnered a $15 million advance, and along with a follow-up book, has earned him a reported $30 million. Hillary’s 2003 “Living History” has netted her about $10 million.

About the only thing the Clintons haven’t done for pecuniary gain is to pitch deodorant, athletic footwear or cosmetics. But, with their pockets already bulging, why bother?

Although Bill Clinton, like other past presidents, has labored to build a presidential library and museum, and worked to promote a variety of worthy public and charitable causes, it is his acquisitive drive that has set him apart.

Historically the presidency was considered anything but a road to wealth. Indeed, those presidents who weren’t rich before entering office often left it with little but the clothes on their back. Until 1958, they were not even paid a retirement income, the exception being a $3,000 a year pension voted by Congress in 1870 for the lifetime support of Abraham Lincoln’s widow, Mary.

In 1885, former president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant wrote a two-volume memoir, mainly about his military career. Though stricken with throat cancer. Grant persevered to finish the manuscript, completing it five days before his death. His motivation, to raise enough money to keep his widow out of poverty, was realized when book sales brought in $450,000.

After his second term ended in 1921,Woodrow Wilson – crippled by a stroke and dispirited by the Senate’s refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and his cherished Covenant of the League of Nations – had neither a home to retire to nor the funds to buy one. Fortunately for him, admiring alumni from Princeton, where Wilson had been a popular professor and college president for 20 years, chipped in to purchase a townhouse for him in Washington, D.C.

In 1953, Harry Truman retired to the Independence, Mo., home he and his wife, Bess, had occupied since their marriage in 1919. There he lived unpretentiously, without Secret Service protection, driving his own car, helping wash dishes and taking brisk early morning walks during which he often gave salty impromptu interviews to the newsmen who trailed him. Truman was in such strapped circumstances after leaving office he was only spared financial embarrassment because he inherited property from his mother and began receiving the $25,000-a-year pension authorized by Congress in 1958 for all ex-presidents.

Jimmy Carter came home to Georgia in 1981 to find his peanut farm and farm supply business deeply in debt. Rather than looking to rebuild the business, he has spent the decades since working tirelessly for national and international peacekeeping, humanitarian and charitable causes.

What can we expect from George W. Bush, when his second term is over?

Bush, who has long been suspected of exploiting his father’s vice-presidential, presidential and Republican Party connections in the 1980s and early 1990s to bail out a failing oil business and parlay his $600,000 investment in the Texas Rangers baseball team into a $15 million payout, should be a natural to enter the high stakes post-presidential sweepstakes.

Indeed, even taking into account his plummeting popularity, President Bush should already be negotiating an advance for his autobiography and booking his first paid lecture tour.

On second thought, perhaps he would be better off lining up endorsements for deodorant and athletic footwear.

Elliott L. Epstein, a local attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected]