Buy People homes or Saddle an Ant?

Sometimes we hear about the trips the President takes and how expensive they are, but rarely do we consider just how much the cost of those trips are actually worth to us. Well let’s just take a look at it in terms we can all understand.

 

 

Wednesday, President Obama packed up the whole show and flew out to Las Vegas to give a speech at a campaign-style rally filled with his supporters to outline his immigration policy. A policy that is nothing more than the same rhetoric-without-a-real-plan that he has been spewing out for the last five years. Once again, lots of talk but nothing tangible to put your hands on or to read with your eyes – JUST MORE TALK.

 

 

So let’s look at the money spent for the President’s Day in the Nevada Sun. On average it takes about three hours to and from Las Vegas from Washington D.C., counting the time on the ground. Now according to the white House’s own figures, the President traveling on Air Force on with his entourage costs approximately $1.2 million per hour. So for six hours of travel time, that will start the bill at $7.2 million.

 

 

Then there is the time and money spent on the event site and setup, overtime for the Las Vegas PD, feeding the entourage, and transportation on the ground. The figure I get for all that based on previous trips of the same sort is around $300 thousand. So for this day trip excursion, the trip’s prior security teamwork, and the other incidentals involved the total cost come to about $8 million dollars on the low side.

 

 

So in the end, for a speech he could have given outside his office in the Rose Garden, he traveled to La Vegas and wasted $8 million to regurgitate the same old rhetoric that gave us absolutely nothing of any substance.

 

 

So let’s see what the $8 million could do for you.

 

 

First of all, $8 million dollars is nearly 80% of the yearly budget of Milam County where I live. But in terms most of us can understand let’s look at what you can buy. If you are interested in cars, you could buy about 6300 first class round trip airfares from Washington DC to Las Vegas, 150 Ford F-150 Raptors, 65 Corvette ZR1s, and about eighty 2,000 sq ft houses.

 

 

Next week he’s going to make another day trip, this time to Wisconsin or Michigan (I lose track with this guy). He’s going to give yet another speech on jobs (like we haven’t heard that one before), which is ironic since his little attended Jobs Council expired today. Maybe this time he could just walk out his office door and meet the press in the Rose Garden to give his speech. Then he take the money he will be saving not taking this trip and send it to Wisconsin or Michigan, where I am sure those folks can make much better use of it than he is.

 

 

Now yes I know all Presidents make trips away from DC, that’s part of the job. But in my life I can’t remember a President taking more trips just to stage yet another outlandish speech of limited substance merely for the purpose of sparking some excitement into his lemmings while framing a picture for his worshippers to slobber over giving him another event with which he can stroke his own ego.

 

 

I don’t know…..maybe more could get done in Washington DC if the President stayed put, maybe he could hold more constructive meetings with the leaders of congress, and maybe he could make better use of his time there rather than gallivanting around the country in search of the perfect audience for his limitless rhetoric which, if it was measured in leather, couldn’t saddle an ant!

 

 

But you get the idea, each trip could buy 80 families a new home, but instead of being responsible with the people’s money, he’ll take a trip to Las Vegas. Maybe next time he’ll take Senator Bob Menendez with him for a good time. Remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!!

 

 

Viva Las Vegas!!

Bill