Oh, I’m so happy to see The New York Times dignifying this nonsense:
Watchdog Group Discloses Cost of First Lady’s Vacation
Michelle Obama’s summer vacation to Spain in 2010 cost taxpayers more than $467,000 in transportation and security expenses, according to a watchdog group that obtained federal records.
The disclosure came at a time when Republicans were already pressing President Obama about billing trips to the government that seem campaign-oriented. Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, called on the president Thursday to reimburse taxpayers for this week’s trip to three battleground states….
Can we just stop right here and do some grade-school math? There are 313,435,217 Americans as I type this, according to the Census Bureau. That means every American’s share of that $497,000 is … less than a penny. A lot less than a penny. Somewhere between one tenth and two tenths of a penny. (My calculator says 0.1585654202975 of a penny.)
This has been bugging me since I started hearing about the horrible, appalling, ghastly GSA junket that became a huge story for days and will probably be talked about at least until November. The cost? $823,000. The cost per American? 0.262574195675019 of a penny.
Should the government avoid waste? Should agencies like the GSA avoid embarrassing themselves? Sure. But have a little perspective, please: this isn’t costing you all that freaking much.
Was taxpayer-funded travel invented in the Obama administration? Of course not. George W. Bush made 77 trips to Crawford, Texas, during his presidency, and you paid. What about election-year presidential travel that’s ostensibly presidential but suspiciously political? Well, here’s a USA Today article from June 2004, when George W. Bush sought reelection:
President Bush is using Air Force One for re-election travel more heavily than any predecessor, wringing maximum political mileage from a perk of office paid for by taxpayers.
While Democratic rival John Kerry digs into his campaign bank account to charter a plane to roam the country, Bush often travels at no cost to his campaign simply by declaring a trip “official” travel rather than “political.”
The 68,000 miles Bush has logged this year on Air Force One include five trips to Pennsylvania.
With rare exceptions, he confines his travels to the more than a dozen states he and Kerry are fighting hardest for, and to places where he is raising campaign money.
Even when the White House deems a trip as political, the cost to Bush’s campaign is minimal. In such instances, the campaign must only pay the government the equivalent of a comparable first-class fare for each political traveler on each leg, Federal Election Commission guidelines say.
Usually, that means paying a few hundred or a few thousand dollars for the president and a handful of aides. It’s a minuscule sum, compared to the $56,800-per-hour the Air Force estimates it costs to run Air Force One….
So, really, enough already.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
*****
UPDATE: Whoops, sorry — the Daily Caller tells me that the exact cost of Michelle Obama’s trip was $467,585. But now the Census Bureau estimates the U.S. population as 313,435,714. So that’s, um … 0.149180511963267 of a penny per person.
Was Orange Julius also complaining about the plane that Speaker Pelosi used? I remember the Faux-bots were at the very least. How is The Tan Man traveling these days? I wonder!!
Thanks for putting it in perspective. The media gives the impression that this sort of thing goes on all the time. From my twenty years with DoD and USPS, I assure you that it is extremely rare. In fact, this is only example I’ve ever even heard of.
Now, the drunken bacchanal in Cartagena, that’s something else. At least in the US Navy. But ALWAYS off duty.
I’m reminded of something a gay ex-Chief wrote in a Letter to the Editor in “Proceedings of the Naval Institute” back when Clinton proposed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and various media were foaming at the mouth about gay promiscuity.
“Anyone who thinks heterosexual sailors are not promiscuous has never been in a liberty port.”
Just to make myself clear, the extremely rare incident I was talking about is the GSA junket. Not White House travel.
Do people expect the First Lady to just buy a coach ticket and take a cab to National Airport (I refuse to call it Reagan Airport)? What would they say when a terrorist killed the First Lady or took her hostage? People of that prominence can’t travel cheaply for security’s sake if nothing else. Should the President risk having his children taken hostage and used for political ransom? Of course the Secret Service has to travel with them and of course it costs money.
I never complained about the costs of Laura Bush or Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan. What’s next? Do they want the President to use a pay toilet or pay rent on the White House?
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And the people frothing the splittlyest about it I suspect would be delighted if FLOTUS took a terrorist bullet.
How about we take the presidential junket expense off their shoulders and they take the military junket expense from ours?
As good a politician as Obama undoubtedly is, he seems to have a blind spot about conspicuous consumption. In these economically dangerous times, it would behoove him to do some Ron Paul/Jerry Brown style dressing down on any number of levels. Sure, he and his family and staff need to be protected from the dangers that they face even if to a great degree they have earned that enmity with aggressive military action across the globe. But this is a hustle thing, Booman. If every vote counts, how many voters…myself included…are turned off by his many vacations, by his and his wife’s expensive clothes, by the “White House Dinners” that are mostly a waste of good food and wine on hustlers who themselves are so used to being treated like royalty that a good bottle of wine means nothing to them but the same-old same-old.
Of course…if the fix is in so deep that he can’t lose and if he is a witting participant in that particular scam, i guess he can luxuriate any way that he wants. But conspicuous consumption is going out of fashion, Booman. Too many people on the scuffle for it to resonate the way it used to resonate…as a sign of success. Daddy Warbucks is old news. Time to back off a notch, if only for the sake of sheer decency in the face of economic trouble.
But NOOOOOOoooooo…
And yes. It pisses me off.
But Ron Paul…???
Now there’s a man who understands the meaning of frugality.
Just saying’…
Honor before hustle.
Too bad it doesn’t work very well when smack dab in the middle of the hustle hurricane.
So it goes…
AG
At least he drives a Buick not a BMW or a couple of Cadillacs.
But if he was truly frugal, he would drive a Chevy Cruze. Or an old Pinto.
Really?
Do the math.
A new Cruze or other fairly gas-conscious automobile would cost…what? Say roughly $25K if he wants equivalent room as is provided by his Buick. Which is undoubtedly paid for and maybe costs an average of only about $1000/year in repairs.
So he’s getting maybe a little as 20 MPG with his Buick. And he drives say 15K/year. A good average, although I suspect he drives much less than that.
15K divided by 20MPG @$4/gallon=$3000
15K divided by 30MPG @$4/gallon=$2000
These are rough estimates, of course, but they’re in the ballpark. So his Buick costs him about $4000/year.
The new car? I imagine he can pay cash for one but let’s say he’s like most of us and needs a car loan. Say he gets a fairly cheap monthly rate of $350/month, which would mean he plunked down over $5000 out front. Prorate the $5000 for the down payment over the life of the loan…roughly 5 years, let’s say…and he is paying over $5000 per year in financing fees. Even if he paid cash for the car, over 5 years, paying for it would cost him $5000/year.
So his beater Buick is costing him $4000/year and his new midsize ecocar is costing him $7000+/year.
Hmmmm…
Now these are all ballpark figures, but the “Save gas!!! Save money!!! Buy a new, more efficient car!!!” hype is just that. Hype. It takes forever to begin to “save money” when you trade in a fully paid-for car for a new one, even if the gas savings are very substantial. Add to that the immediate depreciation of a new car, etc? Hardly worth the effort, except in terms of the greening factor. And even that? Prorate the manufacturing impacts in terms of environmental issues and how much “greening” is actually taking place? Not very damned much. Bet on it.
If gas goes up to $6, $7, $8, $9 a gallon as they are in Europe??
HOO boy!!!
You’ll save a lot of money then, because the entire U.S. economic system…which is based on cheap fuel extorted from producers at the point of a gun…will collapse and there won’t be anyplace to go.
Check it out.
Turn off the TV and its car ads and do some math instead.
You be bettah off.
AG
I’m presuming he bought the Buick new. And you are neglecting repair costs. I doubt he does his own repairs, although those old Buicks are pretty reliable. Still proprietary parts costs will eat you alive and you have to be a skinny contortionist to work on those front wheel drive jobs.
Now those old Roadmasters, on the other hand, were a breeze for a trained mechanic to work on and most parts were available on the aftermarket. 5.7L engine parts, being interchangeable with Chevrolet/Corvette are easy to buy cheap. The 3.8L engine, albeit a fine motor, has virtually no parts support outside of GM. I put 191,000 mileson a ’93 Roadmaster with only a few repairs, all done by myself (caveat, yes, I am a trained mechanic) on my driveway.
So tell me how great Toyota is and how crappy GM is. It all depends on which car and which era.
P.S. An old Pinto?
What? Are you advocating violence against his person? A Pinto!!!???
Please.
AG
Just a joke, Arthur.
I know.
Mine too.
AG
how many voters…myself included…are turned off
Give me a break, Arthur. We know you’re voting for Gary Johnson. Obama never had a chance for your vote.
Gary who?
I am an ecologically conscious voter, Steve. A wasted vote is ecologically inefficient. Better not to vote at all.
AG
P.S. What would happen if they held an election and nobody showed up? Would the government fall? Let us pray.
AG, I think you know that only fifty percent of registered voters here actually show up on POTUS election day, less for mid-term elections.
That in itself is a rather large indicator of system FAIL, and an inconvenient fact mostly ignored in partisan bloggo world where many are in denial regarding just who is running the Circus.
Glad it was your calculator and not Megan McArdle’s – she would have gotten it wrong.
Nice job of putting this in perspective. I went a couple of rounds with Jake Tapper when he brought up the issue of POTUS’s trips. He admitted that this is something ALL presidents do, that the reimbursements are too small because of the formula used, and that the President(s) is/are not at fault for that.
Kinda makes you wonder why the question gets asked in the first place, doesn’t it?
It’s not really about “sharing” the cost.
It’s about a couple of other things-
1.) Politics is war, and in bloggo world, there’s a constant tit for tat criticism going on. You’re right, bush took numerous trips to the Crawford “ranch”. Per the CBS article below, at 31 months into their respective presidencies, bush had taken 180 days of “vacation” at the ranch, while Obama has taken 61 days.
I use quotes for the term vacation since bush often held meetings while at the ranch. the notion he was sitting back relaxing would not be accurate. The same can be said for Obama’s time “off”.
But no matter- the left went nuts over the amount of time bush was on vacation. A few on the left took a different tact; bush should take more time off since the less he was in Washington, the less damage he could do.
Now it’s the right’s turn to point to the cost of the first lady’s vacation and say, “See! the Obamas spend a lot of money on vacations just like bush did”.
The lesson for me (learned long ago, and it’s maddening that progressives in bloggo world never seem to get it) is: it’s pointless to criticize the right for things the left more or less does as well.
2.) It’s no surprise to see the NYTime’s publishing “nonsense”, because that’s a big part of what mainstream media does: focus on small potatos stories instead of talking about where the real financial waste is, i.e. Wall St., the MIC, etc.
It’s a distraction; but it’s likely to get some traction since many of us don’t have $467 for a weekend trip somewhere, much less $467,000.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-20093801.html