If there’s anything NASCAR people understand, it’s the pointless waste of gasoline.
As someone who voted for Obama, is planning on voting for him again in 2012 (unless something unforeseen changes my mind) and who would celebrate wildly with a memorial Perocet and Pilsner Urquell bender upon hearing that Rush Limbaugh’s teeny-tiny little penis was savagely cut off with a rusty razor by the fat, uppity actress from “Precious” (seriously, if he was attacked, I would toast his tormenter with the Good Stuff), I too would like to know if Michelle and Barack Obama are indeed going on vacation at the same place at the same time (within 4 hours) why they needed to take two separate planes?
Carpooling must never have occurred to them! Look how smart we all are, and how dumb they must be!
Me? I don’t really want to know. I’m sure they had a good reason, and I don’t have the time or energy to second-guess every minor decision the federal government makes.
We had a previous thread about this, and it was determined that no, they could not have done it in one plane. But I can’t remember the exact reason.
Have you ever flown with pre-teen girls before?!
So why do they care NOW? I mean, has the travel procedure changed from the previous First Lady’s? Is Michelle Obama travelling more without the President than Laura Bush?
Do people not realize that the taxpayers only pay for the POTUS’s travel? All PTOUS family travel is paid for by them personally or by a reelection campaign, unless the FLOTUS is traveling with POTUS for State business. Even when they fly for vaction on Air Force One, the President reimburses the government for the costs.
Have you got a cite for that? Because the cost of flying a 747 to, say, Hawaii is a rather large. According to this page, a 747 burns about 3600 gallons of fuel per hour. A flight from DC to Honolulu is, what, 11 hours one way? That’s 80,000 gallons of fuel. What’s jet fuel cost in bulk these days, $3 a gallon?
Are you really saying that the president reimburses the taxpayers for $240,000 (even more when you throw in flight crew paychecks and maintenance costs) when he flies to Hawaii on personal business?
DNFTT
This works in real life too, you know.
nm
OK this, this is funny.
I believe he reimburses for some expenses but doesn’t pay all, OR like the other poster said, it comes form his coffers.
He has some money, but not money like that.
It’s brilliant is what it is!
I’ll give a cite later, but what happens is when the president travels on official business, this is done at taxpayer expense. If some of his family is required for this, most often the wife, the taxpayers pay that too.
When he travels on personal business, he pays the equivalent of a commercial first-class fare for the use of Air Force 1. The rest of the family is charged a similar amount. Also, if he’s flying on campaign business, the campaign is charged, and pays, the same amount. In both cases, the taxpayers pay the rest.
The reasons for this are pretty obvious. Even if it’s a campaign trip, the secret service doesn’t want the president on United. Much too dangerous security-wise.
So, the president has to pay an arguably fair fare for his travels, even though that comes no where near the total cost of operating the flight.
ETA: I can’t remember where I read this, but apparently being president is fairly expensive. There’s a lot they have to pay for themselves.
excellent username/post combo
lol. Just… Just good.