Posted on 10/05/2011 2:02:39 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
A fight has broken out between the White House, its defenders and a conservative public watchdog group over first lady Michelle Obama's travel costs and how they are calculated. The dispute stems from a Judicial Watch release yesterday, reported by Whispers, that said the first lady's June goodwill mission to Africa cost $424,142 just for her Air Force C32A.
Judicial Watch said it used Pentagon calculations to come up with the price to taxpayers, multiplying the hourly cost of $12,188 by the number of flight hours, 34.8.
[Read: Michelle Obama's Africa Trip Cost More than $424,142.]
The White House later said that the costs used were exaggerated and included elements typically not included in calculating flight costs.
"The number stated is misconstrued and out of context. The hourly rate is not the marginal cost of operating the plane—it is an accounting figure that prices in a number of fixed costs from maintaining the Air Force fleet for this kind of plane over a year. For example, it includes estimated replacement parts, depreciation, repairs, and costs that would have been incurred regardless of this flight," said an official.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
So give us the REAL numbers!
And also the amount paid by those 21 freeloader relatives and friends as compensation
Ditto with the trip to Spain with a posse of 30, all to have lunch with the Queen...
So how much did we pay for her children....I mean “staff” to go?
***The hourly rate is not the marginal cost of operating the plane—it is an accounting figure that prices in a number of fixed costs from maintaining the Air Force fleet for this kind of plane over a year.***
Bifurcated bookkeeping???
Who else used this plane ‘over the year’?
The modern day “let them eat cake” crowd. The Obama’s are the classic “poor white trash” with apologies to America’s poor white trash.
Everywhere this WH turns anymore, there is just damaging embarrassment. The Regime were partying like rock stars all through this term and now they are surprised they are being called on it.
The First Lady's staff filed a fraudulent travel voucher.
This is straight out of Animal Farm.
Like all government spending, there are multiple accounting methods used to track the money, depending on whether you want to talk about how expensive something is or how cheap.
For example, when you want to calculate the cost of a mission in President Bush's illegal war in Iraq, you can get one number, but when you want to calculate the cost of a comparable mission to fly Queen Esther and her brood on a fat-finding mission to Africa, you can produce a far lower number.
“The hourly rate is not the marginal cost of operating the plane—it is an accounting figure that prices in a number of fixed costs from maintaining the Air Force fleet for this kind of plane over a year.”
Yes moron, that’s how the hourly cost of ALL aircraft is calculated.
From the airline to the corporate jet - yes even Air Force aircraft. And by the way, it sounds suspiciously low already.
The First Wookie travels with a hairdresser and makeup artist...well, that’s really been working. /s
The bitch needs to pay us back.
I want to know if / and how much the two kids got paid to be “senior staffers”. Impeach now.
Shoot...I even miss Hillary.
What about the $900.00 for just plane food?
Since this is just the cost of the plane then I assume it’ll be about the same whether there were 20 people or just her. But it’d be interesting to see what her total bill for travel has been, both international and domestic. I know Laura Bush made occasional trips without George, but I don’t remember her making anywhere near the number that Michelle Obama has made. The difference between the amount rung up by the two of them has to be enormous.
“Let them eat cake.” is now “Eat your peas.”
We need to force all First Families to pay the full cost of any vacation they take while in the White House.
You get a two-fer on that one:
1. If they got paid, child labor and payroll tax laws were broken.
2. If they didn't get paid, child labor laws were broken.
Paging Hilda Solis, paging Hilda Solis...
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