There are reports on Facebook and various conservative blogs that the President’s upcoming trip to India is wildly extravagant and over-the-top expensive, betraying is lack of understanding or concern of the economic struggles of the electorate.
According to this article and others from NDTV (byline: Press Trust of India), this trip will cost upwards of $200M/day, including: an entourage of 3,000 people, 40 planes, 3 helicopters, 800 hotel rooms, a “huge fleet” of armored cars and 34 warships sent from the US.
I haven’t been able to confirm any of this in the mainstream press, although it has been repeated by the likes of Michelle Bachmann.
The White House has called these figures “wildly overblown.” What’s the likely truth here? I’m highly dubious.
I’m dubious as well. The source for this is some unnamed, anonymous Indian governmental official- and yet the Right has embraced it as unvarnished truth.
That number is pretty obviously wrong, IMO. It will surely be expensive, but the idea that elected representatives are treating something from an unnamed source as factual when they could just ask the White House for the real figures, is just par-for-the-course these days.
What sucks is that he is skipping a previously planned trip to the Golden Temple, the center of the Sikh religion, because he is scared of the political ramifications of donning a dew rag (head coverings are required for anyone who visits the inside of the temple). Very disappointing.
Are the sailors only getting paid because they’re part of an escort fleet? I hardly think so. If they weren’t around India they’d be patrolling other seas. It isn’t like the Navy would be able to refund money to the Treasury Department if they weren’t part of the security. Much ado about darned little.
Of course, the whole point of this is to whip up the outrage-‘o’-the-day amongst the more gullible elements of the right wing, but I’ll play along:
From the article:
So, hell, it could be $200 billion dollars a day! We have no way of knowing! This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks!
Seriously, though: someone, anyone feel free to explain to me why on earth the White House would discuss the cost per day of a Presidential trip with Indian officials. What, are they planning to invoice India for the costs?
Entourage of 3,000? Even the Sultan of Brunei doesn’t haul that many people around. 300, including press, staff, and security, might be more like it. As for 34 ships (not actually mentioned in the linked article), what would those be for, given the trip apparently is by air and land?
AF-1 and a C-17 it would cost about $1.5 million round trip so a fleet of 13 heavy-lift transport planes it would probably be $11 million. Not sure what a hotel costs to rent for 3 days or what a warship costs. The White House should be able to calculate a figure.
I don’t quite get the aircraft carrier group. Doesn’t India have a navy and how much danger is there of a attack from the sea?
It’s not like he’s visiting a Dairy Queen. I have no reason to believe it’s over/underblown and I have no reason to give more than a shit pebble if it is.
I also just realized that “3000 people” with “800 hotel rooms” means that, on average, they are putting up 4 people in each room. Either those numbers are bullshit, or they’re actually being pretty frugal
The other thing is, I haven’t even seen these numbers confirmed or discussed on Fox News (although TBH I didn’t look very hard).
Since I’m pretty sure this money is already in his budget, it’s not like it wasn’t going to get spent anyway. It doesn’t even have to be that he’s hiding anything. It could be that this crap is so trivial that he never bothered to consider publicizing his travel expenses.
This seems right up the alley of Snopes. Though they wouldn’t be able to prove how much the trip is actually going to cost, they would do enough homework based on the known costs of other trips, typical number of people on state visits, etc to either refute or roughly agree with the numbers stated.
Skammer, where did you get all those numbers? The only ones in the article are the cost per day and number of people, plus “helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.” It doesn’t say anything about 800 hotel rooms or 34 warships.
If it is actually 3,000 people (I’m doubtful), 800 hotel rooms might be reasonable since the President and others are probably at an Indian guest residence, not a hotel. Heads of state visiting the USA may stay at Blair House, which has 14 guest bedrooms and nine staff bedrooms.
I was just discussing this with some Indian guys in my office. They are apparently staying in the best hotel in Bombay, that is, the entourage is staying there. Obama is staying somewhere else I think.
My friends pointed out that Bush also went to India so it might be interesting to compare the costs/entourage sizes. They tell me that Bush received a gift of mangos and subsequently agreed to lower barriers to importation of India mangos. So the trip was worth it.
ETA: That article also includes links to Snopes.com and Factcheck.org, both of which doubt the veracity of the overblown expense reports. The Snopes article must be new because I checked Snopes this morning.
That’s in the same price range as Bush’s conquest of Iraq, $73 billion a year. Of course, Iraq was off budget, and this Obama thing, no matter what it really costs, will be on budget, so I can understand why Republicans complain about the one, and not the other.
As mentioned US presidential visits to India aren’t exactly rare in recent years. Bush visited and so did Clinton before him. I doubt Obama’s visit is going to be much more expensive than theirs.
Incidentally the Indian media is going slightly crazy about this trip in their usual fashion. There is an entire section about it on the Times of India website. Obama is huge in India as was Clinton. Bush, not so much though his role in the Indo-US nuclear deal is greatly appreciated by the kind of people who care about such things.
When I went to India on a business trip, every hotel we went to and every big restaurant we ate at had a smiling picture of Bill Clinton. He really is extremely popular still there. Especially the Bukahra Restaurant in Delhi, which is reputed to be his favorite (and I could see why).
