And I note that sequestration didn't affect the Spring Break vacation in the Bahamas, which encompasses far more than flying them down there. Why couldn't they have had a "staycation" in the White House or simply gone home to Chicago for the week? We have money for the First Family to vacation in the Bahamas but not enough to keep the folks at Hanford Nuclear Reservation employed detoxifying that site? Is it just me, or do there appear to be some priority issues associated with the current administration's use of the money appropriated by Congress?
How many times does it have to be explained that the president pays for his own vacations and that of his family, except for those perks of the job like secret service and air force 1, it would be just as expensive for them to go home to Chicago as to go to the bahamas, probably more expensive as security would be more difficult. But no....over and over and over and over and over again the conservatives whine about the First Family actually having a family life like normal people. Yeah, normal reasonably wealthy people....who you seem to revere and want to protect......until, of course, it ia Obama who has the money.
I have the beginnings of a clue for you archer, the First Family can't have a life like normal people do. That's part and parcel of taking the job. Oh sure, the president may be paying for the hotel and food bill for his own family, but I can promise you that he isn't paying the hotel bill for the Secret Service, the medical support staff. I can also promise you that he didn't pick up the added expense of the jet fuel to fly support vehicles and personnel to the Bahamas.
The thing of it is is that the expense wasn't necessary during a time of federal sequestration. The First Family could have stayed at home in the White House and saved the taxpayers the money of flying personnel and support vehicles to the Bahamas, along with the cost of putting all of them up in a hotel, let alone the cost of a presidential plane leaving the hangar out at Andrews and having to stay on station in the Bahamas. Think all of that money, while literally a drop in the bucket of federal overspending, might have been better used cleaning up a nuclear waste site? How many workers do you think that site could have retained, and for how long, with the amount of money being spent to ensure that the First Family can enjoy Spring Bread in the Bahamas? A C5 Galaxy has a fuel capacity of 50,000 gallons. At $4/gallon, we're talking $200K just to fuel the aircraft used to transport the support vehicles, let alone the plane to fly the daughters, and another one to fly Michelle down later, the cost of housing the support staffs for those vehicles, round the clock protection of the vehicles at a foreign airport, food, and per diem for all the people who made the trip because of where the First Family decided to go for Spring Break.
You really want to try and tell me that having a "staycation" at the White House for one year to at least give the impression that the Obama's care about the effects of sequestration would have cost as much as this vacation in the Bahamas is going to?
American school kids can't tour the White House but......
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group with Muslim Brotherhood origins and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial, recently toured the White House and met with multiple officials. According to the group, Paul Monteiro, Associate Director of the Office of Public Engagement, “cited ISNA as his primary means of outreach to the American Muslim community.”
