Posted on 04/19/2006 12:19:56 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
Edited on 04/19/2006 12:35:57 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
When Vice President Dick Cheney shuttled across the state Monday on Air Force Two, raising as much as $500,000 for the Republican Party and its candidates, taxpayers footed most of the bill.
The campaigns of GOP Senate candidate Mike McGavick and House hopeful Doug Roulstone will reimburse only a tiny fraction of what it cost to fly Cheney to Washington, drive him around in motorcades, put him up for the night, pay the salaries of traveling staff and provide Secret Service protection.
Subsidized campaign junkets by the president and vice president are likely to add up quickly in this year's crucial battle for Congress.
"Assuming that the president and vice president engage in political travel in 2006 comparable to their political travel in 2002, the projected cost to the taxpayer of their political flights in 2006 is $7.2 million," said a report last month by minority staff of the House Committee on Government Reform.
"Adjusting this figure to account for estimated reimbursements, the projected net cost to the taxpayer in 2006 is $7 million," the report added.
The Cheney trip this week is a textbook case of how to charge the public purse for a political trip.
An oft-used gambit is a brief "official" stopover at a military base between fund-raisers.
The troops may have been sent to Iraq without adequate protective gear and armor, but Cheney and President Bush have not hesitated to deploy soldiers, sailors and airmen as stage props.
Cheney spoke for 17 minutes Monday afternoon to about 500 service members at Fairchild Air Force Base outside Spokane. The stop at Fairchild allowed Cheney to save Republicans thousands of dollars they would have to reimburse the government if the political event had been the only item on his Lilac City itinerary.
Bush used a similar gambit in 2004 when he came to Spokane to boost the Senate campaign of then-Rep. George Nethercutt. He included an official event in the form of a speech on "new threats to the nation's security" at Fort Lewis.
The real business lies elsewhere. Bush spoke to a $1,000-a-plate dinner for Nethercutt.
Cheney's real destination in Spokane was the Marie Antoinette Room of the Hotel Davenport. A $500-a-person reception for McGavick drew about 200 people.
Rich Republicans paid $2,100 apiece to get their pictures taken backstage with Cheney, in Spokane and at his earlier Everett stop. A chosen few participated in a small "round-table discussion" with Cheney.
Travel by the president and vice president does not come cheaply.
Flight operating costs total $56,518 an hour on Air Force One and $14,552 an hour on Air Force Two, according to last month's House report.
The figures are based on per-hour costs listed by the General Accounting Office for 2000, and adjusted for inflation.
Bush and Cheney have hit the road to secure and hold on to Republican control of the House and Senate.
During the last off-year election, in 2002, Bush went on at least 46 trips to 82 destinations to do political fund raising and rallies. Air Force One covered 45,000 miles on these trips at an estimated flight cost of $4.1 million. The estimated cost of accompanying cargo planes came to $615,000.
Cheney took at least 37 trips to 86 destinations on 2002 political missions. He covered more than 66,000 miles at an estimated flight cost of $1.8 million.
What did the political beneficiaries pay?
"The total estimated reimbursement recovered by the federal government for presidential and vice presidential political flights in 2002 was $198,000, and the total net cost to the taxpayer was $6.3 million," the House report said. "The taxpayer thus paid an estimated 97 percent of the flight expenses."
Our paper's Washington, D.C., correspondent, Charles Pope, found that the Bush-Cheney campaign reimbursed the federal treasury just $362,497 for political travel in the last half of 2003. Bush and Cheney raised more than $100 million in re-election donations in that period.
If, as is not uncommon, this column gets sent out on the right-wing FreeRepublic.com Web site, angry e-mail diatribes at Bill Clinton will follow.
Of course, Clinton used Air Force One for political fund raising. All of our "Elvis sightings" during his second term featured a palm extended for the Democratic National Committee, or Sen. Patty Murray, or Hillary.
The taxpayer subsidy was excessive when Clinton took to the air, as it was when covering political travels by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
We've just seen more flagrant use and abuse under Dubya and the Dicky bird.
How much did Cheney's most recent trip out here cost? Using the House committee's figures, flight operating costs for Air Force Two totaled at least $160,000, probably more. (A local Democratic intern came up with a figure of $174,625.)
Add to that the cost of 10 White House staffers and perhaps 20 Secret Service agents, plus at least 30 local police officers. A motorcade took the vice president to Redmond for the night.
We're nudging up toward $200,000.
What will be reimbursed? Campaigns will pay roughly what would have been the cost had Cheney and those connected with his politicking flown out commercially using first class.
Such a deal!
What has Mr. Connelly written in the past to incur the wrath of Freepers?
How mush does the DNC pay all the media outlets to bash the President and Republicans?
Joel sounds like a paranoid little twit.
Winning elections has it's benefits. As if Billary didn't do this.
What is this fools problem!? "If this post gets on freerepublic.com, people will point out the hypocrisy in my writing, so I will deal with it now." What a maroon.
I don't see FR mentioned in this... or?
As opposed to even richer Democrats like Maria Cantwell?
If, as is not uncommon, this column gets sent out on the right-wing FreeRepublic.com Web site, angry e-mail diatribes at Bill Clinton will follow.
Good Lord, Joel.
What gay man didya have to mug for that sweater?
Ah, the Seattle P-I. Taking a little time out from slobbering over Governor Gregoire to bash the GOP.
What a WHINER (the author).
It doesn't even rise to the level of journalism.
On the actual topic of the President and Vice President's travel - we have to keep them safe - its too important to do otherwise and as long as we remain a Republic our leaders will need to travel and be involved in politics and fund raising.
Perhaps the critics would prefer we do away with elections?
Joel Connelly's Dirty Tricks
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's political columnist, Joel Connelly, laments the negative tone of the presidential campaign:
If the first attack ads are any indication -- as well as the unrelentingly negative stuff e-mailed to the media -- America's political climate from Washington, D.C., to this Washington is polluted, acrid and unhealthy to voters and other living things.But in the nearly 1,000 word column, only 44 words are devoted to criticizing Democrat attack ads, the other 900+ words criticize Republicans. He even goes so far as to equate the state Republican Party's "Who Is John Kerry?" web page with convicted Watergate-era dirty-trickster Donald Segretti.
Connelly saw no need to mention the state Democratic Party's web page of partisan attacks on Republicans or its advertisement for "Bush Lied" yard signs.Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 17, 2004 10:06 AM
Categories: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The 'Toon was on the road campaigning constantly--for 8 years! Relatively speaking, my guess is that Bush & Cheney have reduced these costs.
bttt
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