well the Brits only have a Queen... the boy thinks he's GOD!!! God costs more
Posted on 09/27/2012 2:51:09 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.
In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.
Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.
Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”
“The most concerning thing, I think, is the use of taxpayer funds to actually abet his re-election,” Gray, who worked in the Eisenhower administration and for other Republican presidents, said in an interview with TheDC on Wednesday.
“The press has been so slow in picking up on this extraordinary increase in the president’s expenses,” Gray told TheDC.
Specifically, Gray said taxpayer dollars are subsidizing Obama’s re-election effort when he uses Air Force One to jet across the country campaigning.
When the trip is deemed political, it’s customary for the president to pay the equivalent of a first class commercial ticket for certain passengers. But Gray says that hardly covers the taxpayer cost of flying the president and his staffers around on Air Force One.
“When the United States’ billion-dollar air armada is being used politically, is it fair to taxpayers that we only be reimbursed by the president’s campaign committee for the value of one first-class commercial ticket for each passenger who is deemed aboard ‘for political purposes?’” Gray asks in the book.
“And is that bargain-price advantage fair to those opposing an incumbent president?”
In the book, Gray admits Americans want their president to be safe and comfortable but argues the system should be reformed to stop the amount of unquestioned perks given to the president.
“There is no mechanism for anyone’s objection if a president were to pay his chief of staff $5,000,000 a year,” he told TheDC. “And nothing but a president’s conscience can dissuade him from buying his own reelection with use of some public money.”
Aside from a salary, the president gets a $50,000 a year expense account, a $100,000 travel account, $19,000 entertainment budget and an additional million for “unanticipated needs,” he notes.
Here is a sample of other pricey taxpayer funded perks exclusively reserved for the president:
The president can appoint high-paid staffers without Senate confirmation: Obama has 469 senior staffers and 226 are paid more than $100,000 a year, according to the book. Seventy-seven are paid as much as $172,000 per year. He also has appointed 43 “czars.”
The president can vacation for free at Camp David: Gray writes that each round trip made to Camp David costs the taxpayers $25,350. It’s also estimated that the combined transportation and personnel costs for a Camp David visit are $295,000 per night.
The president has a full-time movie projectionist in the White House theater: Projectionists sleep at the White House and are there 24 hours a day in case anyone needs to see a movie. “Compared to the 450 times President Carter used the movie theater in his four years in the White House, the average American citizen, according to industry statistics, goes out to see a movie slightly less than five times a year,” Gray writes.
The president’s family’s gets certain travel and security expenses paid while vacationing: “First Lady Michelle Obama drew flack from the media and irate citizens when it was disclosed that, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, she spent 42 days on vacation — within the span of one year.”
The president’s dog gets its own high-paid staffer: “Bo made the news when he and his handler were flown to join the president on vacation in Maine,” Gray wrote about the Obama family dog. “It has been reported that the first family’s dog handler was paid $102,000, last year.”
I’m sure obama is hating all the opulence and pretentiousness but he has a thankless job of stick’n to the rich.
well the Brits only have a Queen... the boy thinks he's GOD!!! God costs more
Life is a cabaret.
Bttt
Get rid of the czars. That would be helpful. The movie projectionist should be available only from 6-12 weeknights and noon to midnight on weekends only. I give a little leeway to the fact that any President just can’t go to the movies so they need some sort of entertainment. It should not cost that much to go to Camp David. That is just ridiculous. I don’t have any idea why it would cost that much for a place that is less than an hour from the White House. The campaigning for President is a necessity but the DNC should pay for that unless he has an official visit with the governor, mayor of the town or something like that. I can’t imagine 1.4 billion is accurate but it sure is a lot of money regardless.
>>I give a little leeway to the fact that any President just can’t go to the movies so they need some sort of entertainment.
He must know what a DVD is. Or cable/satellite TV?
Its still better than what his “subjects” can afford thanks to his intentional destruction of the economy: Netflix and Red Box.
Someone (can't remember who) said it best: he loves being President, but he sure as hell doesn't care for doing any of the work.
I agree with the whole DVD thing, but what about just released movies? He definitely would need some mechanism to see a movie that just came out Friday and not have to wait until it comes out on DVD.
Perhaps he needs to put off seeing a new release and get on with doing his job, meet with the Prime Minister of Israel for starters.
I know. I know. His job is de-developing the United States and his czars are doing that.
I'm talking of the rights and privileges an American president has, compared to other places where the power is normally shared between a President and Prime Minister.
sfl
Does nobama listen to Dave Ramsey on the radio? He’s paying cash, the other guy is pulling out his credit card :)
Is that a $100 bill? Kinda hard to tell. Looks like three digits.
The movie producers put their movies on promotional DVDs before the movie is released. So a DVD would be available.
Rush has spoken about getting promotional DVDs on his radio show.
Is this “livin large on the taxpayers’ dime” just a democrat thing, or is it a black democrat thing? (entitlement mentality)
Anyone have a comment?
It seems to me that the black democrats tend to be more inclined to take advantage of the perks of office than white or hispanic democrats.
Really need a comparison here to George Bush and Bill Clinton’s White House expenses. George Bush used Air force One as he campaigned for re-election in 2004. But still.....I’ll bet crazy arse spendthrift Bammy Boy is squandering much more on his presidency than anyone before. It’s his style. He already has had many more White House parties, at least half of them slanted towards black entertainers to spread Bammy Boy’s fame in de hood
I’d like to see an ad with pictures of BO’s feet on the Oval Office desk. They disgust me and, I think, others feel the same.
Biden telling the boob that last night after he left the bar he was pulling into his drive way and someone drover his hands.
Thank you! :)
We better not hold our breath waiting for Brian Willians to ask Obama the same question he asked Mitt......
It’s good to be king (it’s GREAT to be preezy of the united steezy!)
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