How much time does the President get to relax a little (e.g. watch a movie)? How much sleep does he get per night (usually)?
How much sleep does he get per night (usually)?
It would depend on the President. President GW Bush goes to bed by 10 and is up at 5:30 ish. I have seen that written alot but only found 1 cite:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-01-bush-cover_x.htm
It also depends what do you mean by free time. I’d define free time as time other than required to perform the actual duties of job so to me, all the considerable time GWB spends fundraising and posing for pictures on aircraft carriers would be something that he does on his free time. As a tax paying citizen election fundraising is not something I’m paying GWB to do, its something he does on his own by choice. Others would include those duties as part of his job though.
And let’s not forget the conisderable freetime GWB has to start wars in distant lands and host turkey dinners in faraway places.
That doesn’t really answer the question, though. YOU may not be paying for that, but the RNC certainly is, and campaigning is a part of every President’s job. If I had a second job I am sure my first employer would not consider it time well spent, but it’s still not free time for me, is it?
“Free time” is time you aren’t working. I would guess the President doesn’t get a lot of it. I cannot help but note that they seem to age awfully fast while in office.
Would a more apprpriate question be how much leisure time does POTUS have?
I think he’d have alot of free time as he really only needs to be there to make decisions. His underlings can easily handle the rest once given the order. He still does meet and greets all over (but I’m not sure if that counts as “presidential business”)
Snopes is unsure of its validy but there is a rumor that Bush in particular vacations quite a bit.
If it was true that American presidents are employees of their political parties I’d be very interested in seeing GWB’s IRS Form W-2s that he received from the RNC, and in seeing the ones Bill Clinton received from the DNC, however, in the US the president is only an employee of the US government. I don’t have a cite but I suspect that it is actually illegal for the president to be formally on the payroll of anyone other than the US government while he is in office.
(The IRS Form W-2 is the US tax form which employers report an employee’s wages and income tax withholding information to the employee, to Social Security and to the IRS.)
Isn’t the POTUS also the head of his political party?
Don’t know about the sleep thing, but other than the swearing in ceremony, I don’t think there are any other requirements of the office. I believe that officially, he could vacation for 4 years. I mean, he is the boss.
Anybody know of anything other than the swearing in ceremony that the president is required to do.
It would seem Bill Clinton, had a lot of free time, what getting BJ’s by Monica, at any given time.
My experience is that a BJ doesn’t eat up a lot of time.
enough free time to take month long vacations.
Of course, it should be noted that Bush is never on “vacation” like most other people are. Even when he’s at his ranch in Crawford, he’s working. He doesn’t necessarily need to be in the Oval Office to do his job. He can do it just as easily elsewhere. I doubt very much that one day goes by where Bush doesn’t receive briefings and make decisions that are an inherenet part of his job.
Actually, Clinton was on the phone a lot while being serviced by Monica, so you really can’t call that leisure time. A lot depends on how seriously the president takes his job and how much he is able and/or willing to delegate. Reagan was at best a 9-5 president, Carter was a detail fanatic and probably didn’t get much rest at all. Clinton and Bush I strike me as more towards the Carter end of the scale, Bush II seems more like Reagan’s approach. The only requirements that I know of other than being sworn in are serving as commmander in chief and also advising Congress from time to time as to the state of the union. Modern presidents have made annual speeches to joint sessions of Congress, they couldn just as well mail it in and/or define “time to time” as they see fit.