A quick google revealed this:
Presidential Shrines
While trying to decide what to write for posting today, I received a large mailing from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Somebody has obviously kept a mailing list from long ago. Readers of No Force know that I admired Reagan, more as a man than as a President. Reagan'as core values matched mine... not the results of his Presidency, but his personal values. Here are some of his words that reflect those values:
Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.
I had no intention of writing more about Reagan, but in looking through the mailing about the plans for the Reagan Library, I got upset at their plan to build a large building to house the Air Force One airplane that Reagan used. It takes a sizable structure to hold a Boeing 707 and with one whole wall to be glass, it seemed exceedingly wasteful to me. I started to consider writing about the silliness of such a structure, and did a little investigation. I assumed that the many Presidential Libraries were supported by tax money, but I found that to be only partially true. Most were partially funded with federal money, but their ongoing maintenance is done by private donations in addition to funds from the National Archives and Records Administration ("NARA").
You may not be surprised to find that the annual tax funding for these libraries is not easy to find. They're all about protecting and providing access to huge amounts of information... except for the cost of those efforts. I did find a record of the start-up funding costs. Here are the federally-supported Presidential Libraries, locations, websites, and the portion of the construction costs that were federally funded:
Hoover Library
West Branch, IA
http://hoover.archives.gov
Federal funding: $1,417,000
Roosevelt Library
Hyde Park, NY
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/
Federal funding: $1,640,000
Truman Library
Independence, MO
http://www.trumanlibrary.org
Federal funding: $1,872,000
Eisenhower Library
Abilene, KS
http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu
Federal funding: $2,297,000
Kennedy Library
Boston, MA
http://www.jfklibrary.org
Federal funding: $3,883,000
Johnson Library
Austin, TX
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu
Federal funding: $2,935,000
The Nixon Presidential Materials Staff
College Park, MD
http://www.nixon.archives.gov/
no building, housed in Nat'l Archives
entirely run by private funds
Ford Library
Ann Arbor, MI
http://www.ford.utexas.edu
Federal funding: $2,604,000
Carter Library
Atlanta, GA
http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/
Federal funding: $2,082,000
Reagan Library
Simi Valley, CA
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu
Federal funding: $3,355,000
Bush Library
College Station, TX
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/
Privately funded construction cost: $22 million Federal funding for archive maintenance
Clinton Presidential Materials Project
Little Rock, AR
http://www.clinton.archives.gov/
(to open in November 2004)
Like all government projects, these libraries are rather monumental and extravagant, often seen as overblown shrines to individuals. Certainly, maintaining and providing access to presidential papers and records is valuable for historical purposes, but each library does far more than that.
It has been suggested that Presidents have arranged funding for their grand libraries in exchange for favors while they were still in office. The last such suggestions involved Clinton pardoning Marc Rich before leaving office.
There are other Presidential Libraries maintained by private organizations or individual states, but many former Presidents have no such shrine at all. I think it's fair to say that many of those earlier Presidents would have considered such spectacular, expensive memorials to be completely inappropriate. Remember, government was supposed to be small, non-intrusive, and the servant of the people, rather than worshiped in perpetuity.
FDR started the trend in 1939, and it has grown to become one of those almost invisible benefits I spoke of yesterday, in Overpaid executives versus the working class.
Hummmmm, well it looks like a mismash. The Nixon, George H.W. Bush and Clinton librarys were built with private funds but receive federal funding for preserving and housing their archives. All the libraries charge an admission fee and have a gift shop to help defray operating cost. The 100 or so acres for President Reagan's library was donated by a wealthy California realtor. The George H.W. Bush library was built on the campus in College Station. And, Bubba's has a tiein with the University of Arkansas so I expect they are picking up part of the tab for his. Back in the mid 80's Congress pass a bill or an amendment that required libraries larger than a designated square footage (50 or 60,000 sq ft, I think it was) to be endowed. If I'm not mistaken, the Reagan Library is about 150,000 sq ft. The endowments are created by private foundations who raise money from the president's political supporters.