Report: Price of Obama getaways $70 million so far, and counting

a reply to: blargo

I disagree. This needn't be a political debate, so much as a right and wrong debate in regards over the top expenses. It should apply to every single government employees at every level.

Pay for your own damn vacation, and perhaps come up with a plan and destination that doesn't blow up the budget for protection/security. Seems logical, I am responsible to do so with my job. It's patently absurd that we allow government employees to fleece their constituency.

originally posted by: blargo
Well in fact Obama has taken fewer "vacation days" then previous 2 term presidents.
Compared to past presidents, Obama takes few vacations

This just feels like another issue the Right just wants to blame Obama. But when it comes to vacation taking sure looks like the GOP presidents really take their share. Both W Bush and Reagan took over 1/8th of their presidencies as vacations.

No, it's not how many days as opposed to the cost. Granted Bush took more time but it only cost $20 mil. Obama takes less days at the tune of $70 mil. What gives?

originally posted by: UnBreakable

originally posted by: blargo
Well in fact Obama has taken fewer "vacation days" then previous 2 term presidents.
Compared to past presidents, Obama takes few vacations

This just feels like another issue the Right just wants to blame Obama. But when it comes to vacation taking sure looks like the GOP presidents really take their share. Both W Bush and Reagan took over 1/8th of their presidencies as vacations.

No, it's not how many days as opposed to the cost. Granted Bush took more time but it only cost $20 mil. Obama takes less days at the tune of $70 mil. What gives?

The $20 Million for Bush were only trips to his Texas Ranch. He also had 2 trips to Africa and Laura Bush had 3 additional trips to Africa. So Bush vacations were over $100 million in cost. The issue is the President is always working and needs extraordinary security. The job is so high pressure they need some downtime. So there really should be no issue with a decent amount of vacation.

a reply to: BlueJacket

It's not the vacation...it's the 10s of millions of taxpayer dollars my friend.

You do understand how much security and logistics cost when the president is traveling correct?

It isn't cheap to protect and move one of the most important people in the world.

And lets not pretend any President is really on vacation or even has a single day off while in office. One of the reason it costs when a President travels is that he has to have everything and everybody he needs for the day to day duties of the President. A day off means no or few PR appointments and little party politics but, everything else is still a daily affair. And also it should pointed out the the AF pilots must fly so many hours. So even if the President went nowhere AF1 would be flying all the time anyway.

but, I thought he was worried about global warming and all that jive.....and was telling us how we should cut them down if we want to keep living and breathing? why do I get the feeling that just one of his vacations threw more crap into the atmosphere than my entire neighborhood will throw into it all winter keeping our homes warm?

and no, not everyone needs a nice vacation far away from home..... many can't afford a nice work free vacation at home!!!

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

So let me get it right...I stated that these PUBLIC SERVANTS should not take advantage of their post. I get the price, if they can't hack it, perhaps they shouldn't aspire for the job?

All of them, right or left should live within their means. We pay him 400k, he should go and stay where he can afford and have the minimum requisite security. He or she is a citizen and replaceable, that's a democratic republic. If ya don't like it, don't take the job.

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

He is no more important than anyone else that is a citizen of this country ...again, democratic republic

Is he King trucking Goerge? No the world would be just fine if something happened. I don't want that, but he doesn't float above the rest of us.

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: UnBreakable

What is the magical number that we are willing to accept? I believe Bush cost taxpayers around $20 million just for flights back and forth from Texas to DC, and that doesn't seem to be an issue.

So what number between $20 million and $70 million is acceptable?

I'm gonna say zero dollars outside of the cost of normal paid leave, same as the stipend I get when I go on vacay. (Which hasn't happened in a number of years thanks to dealing with my own money rather than having everything paid for on someone else's dime.)

originally posted by: MrSpad
So even if the President went nowhere AF1 would be flying all the time anyway.

Not exactly. "Air Force One" technically refers to whatever aircraft happens to be transporting the POTUS. If the POTUS climbs aboard a Cesna to go to a remote AK village with only a grass runway, that Cesna just became Air Force One. If, however, there's no POTUS on board, the flight hours of the plane's pilot are clocked in under the Pentagon's budget, which is appropriated and limited (at least in theory).