Two lion cubs named Tax Relief and Budget Bureau

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Silent Cal. This burnishes his reputation for me.

From The Thanksgiving Raccoon That Became a Presidential Pet by Christopher Klein.

In late November 1926, a live animal sent by one Vinnie Joyce of Nitta Yuma, Mississippi, arrived at the White House to be slaughtered and served up for that year’s Thanksgiving dinner. President Calvin Coolidge, however, became smitten by the beast and instead granted it a pardon. The lucky creature was no turkey, though, but a raccoon.

[snip]

Never known as the adventurous type, the cautious Coolidge had never tasted raccoon meat—and he wasn’t about to start experimenting with the gift from Mississippi. When asked if the raccoon was edible, the president smiled and said it might be for some people, but not for him.

What the commander in chief did next with the intended Thanksgiving entree, however, may be the most bizarre part of the story for the strait-laced Coolidge adopted the raccoon as a presidential pet—albeit at a time when far fewer of the furry creatures contracted rabies. The news was hardly surprising to the American public in 1926, however, as the president and First Lady Grace Coolidge were known to be such lovers of animals that people sent them unsolicited pets on a regular basis.

“We always had more dogs than we could take care of,” Coolidge wrote in his autobiography as he reflected on his White House years. While the canines, cats and canaries that were sent to the president may have been on the conventional side, Coolidge also received a black-haired bear from Mexico, an African pygmy hippopotamus from rubber magnate Harvey Firestone and even a pair of live lion cubs, which the fiscally conservative president gave the less-than-fuzzy names “Tax Reduction” and “Budget Bureau.”

Why can't we have conservatives like that anymore?

Things began to calm down after the Coolidges built a wooden house for their new pet in the boughs of a tree on the White House’s South Lawn outside the window of the president’s office. For Christmas, the raccoon received a special Yuletide gift—the name Rebecca—along with a collar sporting a shiny plate engraved with the words “Rebecca Raccoon of the White House.” How Rebecca felt about the trendy $500 raccoon coat that the president and First Lady gave to their elder son, John, that Christmas was never recorded.

President Coolidge quickly grew attached to his new pet. Rebecca became the president’s companion walking around the White House grounds on a leash during the day, and at night she would crawl up into her master’s lap in front of the fireplace. After moving into a Dupont Circle mansion in March 1927 while the White House underwent renovation, the chief executive missed Rebecca so much that he brought her back with him in the presidential limousine to his temporary quarters.