These jobs have a mandatory retirement age. Should presidency?

Here we are at the Fourth of July. The celebration of the birth of our nation. As our thoughts turn to love of country, no one seems to be celebrating the presidential debate last week. President Biden’s halting and often confused style has much of the country concerned about his fitness for office regarding his age.

He will be 82 on November 20th. If he should win re-election and manage to serve a full second term he would be 86 upon leaving office.

Meanwhile his opponent former President Donald Trump just turned 78 on June 14. He would be 82 by the 2028 election. Ironically before Biden’s disastrous debate even Trump showed memory issues when challenging the current president to take a cognitive exam when he got the name of his own doctor wrong.

His recent barely coherent ramblings about a shark and a sinking boat with a battery had much of America questioning his own cognitive capabilities.

As Americans are now living older than ever, is it time some guardrails were put in place? Consider former President Jimmy Carter remains alive at 99 and will turn 100 on October 1st. Would anyone think he could serve?

So is it time we considered a constitutional amendment to place a maximum age on the presidency just as we placed a minimum age which you could run? Would you be opposed to or in favor of a so-called mandatory retirement age for the nation’s highest office?

Before you answer our poll question consider these important jobs that come with a mandatory retirement age.

Airline pilot

By federal regulation airline pilots must stop flying commercially at age 65. They can always remain working for an airline in a non-flying capacity. There was talk in Congress of raising the age to 67 but the idea never took off, pun intended.

FBI agents

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation are required to retire at 57 years old. Since they need at least 20 years of experience to qualify for retirement, agents are generally not hired if they are older than 37.

Foreign service officers – or “diplomats”

Diplomats are required to retire by age 65. If a diplomat can’t work until 86 should a president?

National park rangers

National park law enforcement rangers are mandated to retire by the age of 57.

Judges

Certain states, and New Jersey is one of them, require judges to step down once they reach 70.

Firefighters

The military and certain U.S. agencies use what are known as federal firefighters and these federal firefighters are only allowed to remain on the job until age 57.

Now what do New Jerseyans think about a mandatory retirement age for United States presidents? Perhaps we remember being served by a U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg until he was 89 years old. He died in his fifth term. He was New Jersey’s longest serving senator at 28 years, 5 months and 8 days in office.

So are we immune to what we saw in the debate? Or were we so stunned that a cut off age is sounding suddenly important?

Take our poll below.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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