Owner of campaign bus company: Secret Service hurting my business ("The Obama Effect")

Daily Caller ^ | 08/22/2011 | Alex Pappas

[SparkyBass]

The SuperGuppy would fit the bus. Or Michelle.
Not both.

[SparkyBass]

Too Much...

[Jeff Winston]

So if the government buys a couple of buses rather than lease them from this guy, that’s “unfair?”

Sorry, I just don’t buy it.

[max americana]

>So this guy makes his living leasing buses every four years? Wow, what a job!<

Plus, you have to be incredibly bi-partisan in your dealings with both parties because it’s a business. Good for him. I’m pretty much out because I cannot stand libs nor Dumocraps.

[Domalais]

The SS supplied the buses for both President and challenger in the past, and modified them extensively. This is no different. They could bug either one.

It’s the SS’s obligation to protect the challenger. They aren’t going to let that challenger rent their own Greyhound.

[Domalais]

I seriously doubt that the payoff period on these motor coaches, compared to lease/modify/unmodify/return costs, is anything short of decades. It takes a long time, spending $10K to $50K for modifications and restoration, to burn through $1.1 million, which was the cost of each of these loser cruisers.


I think you're drastically underestimating the level of security afforded the President if you think the modifications cost $10K to $50K.

They probably spent that much just on the fire suppression system.

[cc2k]

Domalais wrote:

I think you're drastically underestimating the level of security afforded the President if you think the modifications cost $10K to $50K.

First, I don't know anything about what it would cost for the modifications.

Second, in several news articles about this, different Secret Service personnel have been quoted with the "tens of thousands of dollars" figure for the cost of modifying leased buses.

From a USNews.com story

---

The decision was made to purchase them rather than continue to retrofit leased buses for the temporary use of the president and other high-level protectees. That costs tens of thousands of dollars, and then the special features have to be removed when the bus is returned to the leasing company. Federal numbers crunchers figured it would be cheaper over the long run to buy the vehicles.

---

There have been other statements like this, and in some other articles, a guy named Donovan from the Secret Service was qouted about the costs and the savings. The figure stated for costs of the "old way" of leasing a motor coach and modifying it for security has consistently been described as "tens of thousands of dollars" in every article.

It takes a lot of "tens of thousands of dollars" spent every 4 years to make the $1.1 million cost of one of these motor coaches. I haven't seen any analysis of the actual costs anywhere.

Again, this could be legit. It might actually have saved the taxpayers money to buy these two monstrosities and outfit them. But the numbers given in the press reports don't add up to that. And there is nobody questioning this.

I still maintain that no self respecting Republican candidate will be seen in either of these loser cruisers. These toys belong to Emporer Obama, and won't be used by anyone else. Hopefully we can elect a leader who will sell them off soon, before they depreciate to no value at all.