White House Is Saving $18,000 a Week By Cancelling Tours

National Review ^ | 03/07/2013 | Patrick Brennan

[SeekAndFind]

ABC reports tonight: “Republicans accuse the White House of playing politics. But the White House says it is canceling the tours because sequester spending cuts have sliced $84 million out of the Secret Service’s $1.6 billion budget. And they are the ones who secure the tours. They wouldn’t say how much this saves, so we did some math. Tours are open 20 hours a week and use 30 uniformed Secret Service officers at about $30 an hour. Total saved? Approximately $18,000 a week.” (Via The Weekly Standard.)

Assuming ABC’s per-week estimate is correct, if you’re looking over an entire fiscal year, cancelling the tours saves about $1 million — or two-thirds of a thousandth (.0625 percent) of the entire Secret Service’s annual budget, and leaves about 98.5 percent of the cuts to the agency’s budget to fall elsewhere. If those cuts have to occur within FY 2013, though, as the sequester appears to mandate, that’s actually only about $550,000, one-third of thousandth (or about .03 percent) of the Service’s budget, and leaving 99.35 percent of the budget cuts still to be made elsewhere.

As Katrina explained earlier this morning, House speaker John Boehner has made it clear that they’d found enough money in the Capitol’s budget to keep providing tours of America’s legislative chambers. 

[SeekAndFind]

Let's see, $18,000 X 50 Weeks ( not including Saturdays and Sundays ), saves us : $900,000 a year.

How much did Obama's golf trips cost? How about Michelle's vacations to Aspen and overseas?

[Doogle]

...they just sent 260 million to Egypt. My guess is they needed the money to buy the jets and tanks we’re selling them

[Doogle]

[allendale]

The real reason they cancelled the tours is that they just can’t get rid of the sickening odor that pervades the “people’s house”.

[TexasCajun]

Let just hide and watch where Barry & Family jet off for Spring Break.

[Mr. K]

Obama can cancel one Golf Trip and he would cover this

[Mygirlsmom]

Prezzie Dearest

[joshua c]

Exactly! More skeet shooting and less golf, Mr. President. Since you go skeet shooting all the time, here is your chance to prove it.

Marine One to Camp David has got to be cheaper than Air Force One at $180k per hour.

[Doogle]

excellent, let’s all use that name..LOL

[Truth29]

This assumes that the agents would not otherwise be paid. Let's see the payroll data.

[SMARTY]

I thought the tour guides were volunteers?

[The Great RJ]

The GSA blew more than that on a Vegas conference and the Dept. of Agriculture is planning to spend that much of a couple of meetings in the California and Oregon wine country. When I worked for state government during a budget crisis the first thing that was cut was the travel budget. No out of state conferences were allowed and in state travel was restricted to only absolute necessity. It would not take much for Obama to issue an order to executive agencies to end these conferences, but instead he will grandstand by ending White House tours.

[NEMDF]

I doubt they have cut any Secret Service staff, reduced their hours or pay. It is just for the drama....

[Old North State]

They won’t save any money unless the headcount at the Secret Service is reduced. The labor hours will just be expended elsewhere.

[Liz]

Cancelling WH tours saves $18,000 p/w (not including Sat/Sun), that's $900,000 a year. How much did Obama's golf trips cost? And Michelle's vacations to Aspen and overseas.

You got that right. The Obama's sure aren't suffering from sequester---their teen daughter was spotted at Buddakhan---a pricey NYC restaurtant---scoffing up rock shrimp, edamame dumplings, short ribs, lobster fried rice........replete w/ five Secret Service guards dining nearby?

========================================

(Cackle) Chicken Little Obama is getting more desperate by the minute---his stupid sequester scare tactics are mounting: he freed thousands of illegal criminals and he's now canceling tours of the White House.....trying to show "the sky is falling" cause he didn't get another trillion dollars from Congress...to buy votes for power-hungry Dems' midterms.

Part of the Obama Team's Dumb and Dumber political strategy----to punish eighth graders visiting the WH from Illinois, instead of slapping down federal trough swillers----like employees of the Agriculture Dept who will attend a California conference sipping "exceptional local wines" and sampling "tasty dishes" prepared by "special guest chefs."

[StormEye]

More pocket money for Obama on his next golf outing to somewhere expensive.

[StormEye]

Also the White House is always stopping the tours — for any reason. In fact, just show up in Washington and see how long it takes to get a tour of the White Hut. (And there are no self-guided tours at the place.)

[SaraJohnson]

That equals one vacation for the wannabe royal family. He hates disrespects America and our people. He thinks he is innately superior to the “masses.”

[billakay]

Also the White House is always stopping the tours — for any reason. In fact, just show up in Washington and see how long it takes to get a tour of the White Hut. (And there are no self-guided tours at the place.)

You are partially correct in that they may cancel the scheduled tours at any time, for any reason, but there have been no "walk-up" tours for a long time now. You have to request a tour through a Representative or Senator's office approximately a month in advance, submit your info to the SS, and if approved, show up at your appointed time. Also, all of these "tours" are self guided, but there are Secret Service in each room to answer questions and point you in the right direction to proceed through the house.

[Reddon]

Two things worry me here, one is that is our President thinks the American public is dumb enough to fall for this crap, and two is that the American public really is dumb enough to fall for this crap and that it works.