Former President George W. Bush charged $100,000 to speak at a charity fundraiser for U.S. military veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and former First Lady Laura Bush collected $50,000 to appear a year earlier, officials of the Texas-based Helping a Hero charity confirmed to ABC News.

The former President was also provided with a private jet to travel to Houston at a cost of $20,000, the officials said.

The charity, which helps to provide specially-adapted homes for veterans who lost limbs and suffered other severe injuries in “the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the total $170,000 expenditure was justified because the former President and First Lady offered discounted fees and helped raise record amounts in contributions at galas held in 2011 and 2012.

“It was great because he reduced his normal fee of $250,000 down to $100,000,” said Meredith Iler, the former chairman of the charity.

However, a recent report by Politico said the former President’s fees typically ranged between $100,000 and $175,000 during those years.

One of the wounded vets who served on the charity’s board told ABC News he was outraged that his former commander in chief would charge any fee to speak on behalf of men and women he ordered into harm's way.

“For him to be paid to raise money for veterans that were wounded in combat under his orders, I don’t think that’s right,” said former Marine Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket attack in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.

“You sent me to war,” added Wright speaking of the former President. “I was doing what you told me to do, gladly for you and our country and I have no regrets. But it’s kind of a slap in the face.”

Today, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who as of-late has gone relatively gaffe-free, uttered a phrase that may not go over too well with the constituency he seeks to reach. During an interview that was live-streamed on the app Periscope, Bush told New Hampshire’s The Union Leader that to grow the economy, “people should work longer hours.”

He was answering a question about his plans for tax reform and responded:

“My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours” and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in.”

Jeb Bush is not happy that the United States is planning to open an embassy in Cuba, and he suggested on Wednesday that if he became president it might not remain open for long.

In an interview with the editorial board of The Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., Mr. Bush was asked if he would keep the embassy up and running if he were elected.

“Probably not,” he said, adding that he would need to give the issue more thought.

Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida and a Republican presidential candidate, has made it clear that he disapproves of normalizing relations with Cuba and repeated on Wednesday that it was a “tragedy” to be negotiating with the country without getting anything in return.

“We’re basically legitimizing a regime that controls its economy and represses its people,” Mr. Bush said, warning against weakening the American embargo against Cuba.

WASHINGTON -- Jeb Bush thinks the next president will need to privatize Social Security, he said at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Tuesday -- acknowledging that his brother attempted to do so and failed. It’s a position sure to be attacked by both Republicans and Democrats.

Bush has previously said he would support raising the retirement age to get Social Security benefits, a common position among Republicans. And he backed a partial privatization that House Republicans have proposed that would allow people to choose private accounts.

But Jeb’s remark ...... reflects a callous insensitivity toward working Americans, a lofty patrician blindness toward the lives of the hoi polloi. What kind of person, given vast inherited wealth and power, sets about worsening the financial circumstances of most Americans – without even bothering to learn what those circumstances are?

If Jeb Bush becomes president, his administration will not be making any deals that allows Edward Snowden to avoid punishment for leaking classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013.

Snowden broke the law, recklessly endangered nat'l security, & fled to China/Russia. He should be given no leniency https://t.co/9RHNGsHZnx
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) July 7, 2015

Yet Jeb Bush’s personal ratings at this point are more negative than positive: 27% positive, 36% negative. And strikingly for a candidate whose appeal is supposed to extend beyond Republican primary voters, he is also viewed negatively by independents (21% positive, 36% negative) and moderates (26% positive, 33% negative).

Bush, like other Republicans, argued that the FCC’s decision last month to approve the strongest-ever rules on net neutrality would “stifle competition, stifle innovation,” according to TIME.

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“The idea of regulating access to the Internet with a 1934 law is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard,” Bush said, according to TIME.

“Just think of the logic of using a 1934 law that was designed when we did have a monopoly for wire-line service as the basis to regulate the most dynamic part of life in America,” Bush said. “It’s not going to be good for consumers. It’s certainly not going to be good for innovation.”

Bush went on to say that backers of net neutrality are regretting the FCC’s ruling.

“There is no support for this now,” Bush said.

A key state policy-maker announced his support Tuesday for a de-listing of an endangered Texas songbird.

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush rallied behind an effort by former state comptroller Susan Combs to de-list the endangered golden-cheeked warbler.

The warbler, a small bird with distinctive yellow-and-black markings that was first listed as endangered in 1990, nests in fewer than three dozen counties in Central Texas — and nowhere else in the world. In spring, the birds arrive to raise their young before beginning a late summer migration to Mexico and Central America.

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....a Fish and Wildlife review of the warbler completed in August, citing other research, recommended against any change in the bird’s listing, which affords it special habitat protections.

“We now know the golden-cheeked warbler should never have been listed in the first place based on actual science,” Bush said in a news release that also announced the support of private property and business groups. He continued: “Its listing devastated private property owners across Central Texas and even limited military training at Fort Hood. With so much at stake, the federal government needs to get this right and de-list the Warbler.”

A Fort Hood official told the Statesman last week that military training hadn’t been hindered by accommodations for the endangered bird.

Asked for examples of private property owners who were “devastated” by the listing of the bird, Bush’s spokesman said he was referring to ways it could affect the value of private property and the mitigation fees that developers in some counties are required to pay.

The former Florida governor’s new home will be built on a 1.3-acre site worth at least $1.4 million, the Globe reported, and was ordered built by Bush’s parents, former President George H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush.

The 3,000 square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom “cottage” is expected to have a gorgeous wraparound porch and feature panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean. The construction of the house, which is expected to be completed in July, is thought to be around $600,000, the Globe reported.

“I’m incredibly blessed to be George and Barbara’s son and am thankful that they have built a special place for their family to gather,” Bush, who currently owns a home in Coral Gables, Fla., with his wife worth at least $1.3 million, said in an email to the Globe. “We are so lucky.”

There’s a beehive of 2016 campaign activity going on this week at Walker’s Point, the seaside compound in Maine that is the summer home for former President George H.W. Bush and where his son, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, is staying this week.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, and his wife, Ann, joined Jeb Bush and his wife, Columba, at Walker’s Point for lunch. They were joined by the elder Bush and his wife, Barbara, as well as Jeb’s son George P. Bush and his wife Amanda. It was an informal gathering.

“Governor and Mrs. Bush were grateful for the opportunity to host Governor and Mrs. Romney for lunch today,” said Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell.