I love it when people think that $24,000 is stupid little crap and can be spent on personal outings. Two more of those trips and he'll have spend everything that I paid on taxes.

The difference in perception is huge. Don't pretend like you just walked into this whole political thing. Mr. Obama doesn't get a free pass on this nor should anyone else. Pelosi is WAY worse than Obama.

Hell, one of those trips and he spent everything and more I spent on taxes last year. But in the grand scheme of things, it's clearly gotten people disproportionately worked up into a lather. People got more pissed at the auto bailout than the bank bailout despite the latter being a full order of magnitude more than the other.

Any of your congresspeople piss away more than that on most fundraisers but I don't see you beating the drum today for campaign finance reform. Especially when you consider that publicly funded elections take the lobby money mostly out of the system, which leads to billions less of money being spent on "pet projects". And that's just a simple example. We could go into the extreme waste in military spending if we wanted to next.

But, you know, we know it's your thing so just keep going after this all day. It's fun when people fixate on stupid crap. Gives the people who do real work a chance to get stuff done without it taking up the headlines.

SI

I honestly just don't see the big deal about it. The President is in a unique position where they are not able to get around like the rest of us. They aren't able to jump in their minivan and head to dinner and a play. They can't buy box seats to a baseball game and enter with the general public. I think it's part of the deal that when you're President, you have some unique perks. If a President is abusing that by going out every night I'd be pissed, but we're talking about one date with his wife in New York.

If you believe that everytime the President heads out to eat in D.C. he should note the miles on the vehicle and write the treasury a check for the $3 in gas that was used, so be it. I just find it petty and stupid during these times.

Really? I haven't been beating the drum for campaign finance reform? That's certainly not correct at all, but feel free to carry on with that incorrect statement.

Military waste? I bitched about that extensively during the Bush Administration, but don't let that stop you either.

I'm a fiscal conservative. I bitch about waste all day long, regardless of party. It just so happens that liberals are in charge right now, so they'll get the brunt of the criticism. If they don't like the heat, they're more than welcome to move on and let someone else do their job.

Personally, I'd rather him take a one night trip to NYC than numerous multi-week vacations to Texas.

With this and the uproar over him liking grey poupon, Republicans won't be satisfied till the Democrats have control over 80% of Congress.

It certainly seems to be a competition between the two political parties to see which group can make the dumbest decisions in Obama's first days in office. Awful lot of people shooting themselves in the foot thus far.

All that matters is the economy. If it recovers by 2012, he gets re-elected. Grey Poupons and date nights are just fodder for partisians. Has no impact on how people will vote.

ding

I concur.

I concur.

Everything Obama does between now and 2012 has an impact on how people will vote. Obama the candidate was hugely popular, but that doesn't always translate into continued popularity for Obama the president. We're what? 5 1/2 months into a four year term?

Everything from policy decisions to the dumbest pseudo-scandal will have an impact on Obama in 2012, because that's how we apparently want our political system to operate these days.

Personally, I have a minor problem with any president having trips like this fully subsidized by the taxpayer. It may be because I just finished Cokie Roberts' "Ladies of Liberty", and read passages of letters from First Ladies complaining about how official entertaining was leaving them broke. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but this seems a little excessive.

And, of course, the White House isn't saying how much it cost. Robert Gibbs told reporters to look up the data on how much a day trip like this would typically cost. We know the Air Force One 's buzzing of the Big Apple cost $328,835, but that includes the cost of the fighter jets as well. This time, however, you have to factor in the flight time and cost of transporting Marine One up to NYC as well. It could be that "date night" cost upwards of $250,000. If the White House isn't concerned about the effect this could have on the President's popularity, then why aren't they just telling the taxpayers how much it cost?

:lol: Yeah, Barry's date night pretty well took care of my tax bill for last year. Money wellll spent.

Seriously, to do something like this when unemployment is at a nearly 40 year high, and is still on the rise probably isn't the best PR move...especially since they also footed the bill for the White House press corps to tag along.

Seems Bush pretty much got crucified for playing golf a few weeks after 9-11. Don't see this as much different.

Will anyone be surprised if it ends up coming out that he paid for the trip out of pocket? If/when that happens, will everyone be cool with it or will folks say that he just paid due to the bad publicity?

I don't know why you couldn't be both cool with it and believe the only reason he ended up paying was because of the publicity. I'd be very surprised, however, if he did do that.

If he can cough up the money to pay for these trips, then we have another problem considering his tax returns and salary.

What about his tax returns?

He made close to $3M in 2008 (largely due to book sales).

So he's going to pay 5-10% of his yearly salary for one night? Yeah, I won't hold my breath on that.

Which is somewhat ironic given that some economists believe that the economy will survive in spite of Obama's policies, not because of them.

This is such a stupid non-issue. Of course it costs more for him to do stuff, he is the president of the United States! How much did it cost Clinton to go on those early morning jogs? Why not use a treadmill? How much for Bush to throw out all those first pitches? Why not stay at home? What about Biden and Obama's trip to the hamburger place? Why not eat in? What a dumb issue for either side to be debating.

Costs for a jog are the same whether he's out or in the White House. Secret Service staffing would be the same either way. They're just out rather than at the White House


A public appearance is business. It's your job to be the public face of the U.S. That's much different than a personal trip.


Public appearance. Same reasoning as above. It's part of the job description.


Agreed. I'm not sure why anyone continues to defend this waste of taxpayer dollars given the current economic situation. It's only worse that we find out today that $25K was a gross underestimation of the total costs. The estimated number was at least $200-250K and even that may fall short of the real cost.


Of course you can't do that, can you Mr. Obama? We'll call it a NYC stimulus package instead.

I can't wait to find out what today's outrage will be!

I think wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money for no good reason should keep us busy for a few days.

I am surprised at how stupid some politicians have been of late. The Obama hypocricy concerning NYC has obviously already been noted. Now NYC Mayor Bloomberg comes out to state that the POTUS should make more than $400K. It's pissed off a lot of NYC residents, many of which struggle to get by with the extremely high living costs in NYC. Just unbelievable stupidity. Perhaps some people do need rases, but when unemployment is soaring and the economy is pissing down its leg, it's not a good time at all to make those kinds of statements.

No. He said, "The President is worth a lot more than we pay him." When you look at the corporation that he is basically the CEO of, I can't see how you would disagree. It's far from a call to give him a raise.

But the POTUS said that CEO's get paid far too much. So we should probably cut his salary.

Mr. Obama will get paid $400,000/year for the rest of his life out of the government coffers. I think that's plenty.

Also, anyone who makes a comment like Bloomberg's is knowingly disregarding the side economic benefits to being POTUS. Books, speaking deals, trips to NYC and Vegas, etc........

It's a no-win situation with him and the economy for right-wing partisians. If the economy does well it's in spite of him. If it does bad it's his fault.

Reminds me of the people crying a couple months back about the stock market being down and blaming it on Obama. Now that it's soared up, he has nothing to do with it.

That's all fine and good...I'm just making sure everyone knows that you misrepresented what Bloomberg said. You made it sound like he was pushing for the presidential salary to be raised, which he wasn't.

I'm not sure its possible to isolate the president's impact on an economy. That's something even economic professors wouldn't agree on.

But I don't see how you can say it's a "no-win" situation for Obama when just a few posts up you said that if the economy recovers in 2012, he'll win. Thta's really a win-win for him. The economy would recover if we had a bucket of rusty nails as president between now and then. Maybe Obama's impact on the economy will have made the economy better than it would have been otherwise - there's no way to know, really. But he'll get credit for ANY improvement.

Be honest. If Bush had done the same thing, and Ari Fleisher or Scott McClellan were refusing to disclose the costs to taxpayers, wouldn't you be a little miffed?

As long as it's not a weekly occurrence, no. The President's family has to be given some leeway to make trips.

It's also not much of an expense compared to other ways the executive misspends money. I'm much more upset by the continuing increases in the size of the Presidential staff. Every President ads a few more Senior Advisors and neither party complains because they want those jobs when it's their turn. Or look at the change in rules the Bush admin made concerning fundraising trips. Up to that point the government paid a percentage of the total costs equal to the time spent doing public business, but Bush changed the rules so that the government pays for all expenses if any portion of the trip includes public business. Much to his discredit, Obama hasn't changed those rules.

This outrage about a trip to see a Broadway show is all about controlling the news cycle. For a day or two there will be a lot of negative press about the trip, but in the end the big excesses of the executive remain and nobody but those already opposed to Obama will remember this in a month's time.

I'm saying with right-wing partisians. They have set the stage that if the economy recovers it's in spite of Obama but if it fails it's all his fault. I just don't see how you can have it both ways on these issues. Either he has the power to dictate the direction the economy goes or he doesn't.

So it's not a big deal because there are worse abuses of taxpayer dollars? Fine reasoning there. Who knew we could only point out the worst rather than save money across the line?

Why don't we all get outraged by excessive copying or staff taking home pens?

What you focus your energy on is what you consider important.

Credibility where art thou...

'Some' economists? You leaned heavily on Cato....you think they dont have a dog in the race?

as I stated in the other thread, the recession one that somehow avoided your shitfest, both sides will be able to come out of things claiming victory. Some will say that the policies staved off depression and others will say much of the policies were unneeded and we made it through in spite of them not because of them...

Before any of the economists settle on their opinions.... I GUARANTEE THAT EVERYONE ON THESE BOARDS KNOWS YOURS.

You and your prejudiced verbosity are exhausting and you have only slightly risen above the rung you settled on when you made an ass of yourself on the bowling/shortbus escapade but I wonder if you really care to gain back that which you let go of in regards to credibility.

I asked you in the other thread, you know the one you put out there regarding the doctor vs. the murderer if you recognized how much credibility you lost considering the response you had gotten....have you? I mean you dont have to agree with the conclusions or opinion but the outpouring is stark....have you been able to look into this mirror at all? The forest for the trees? Even in the games thread you move the 'point' around to suit your will and needs at that moment, it must be exhausting running around trying to cover your 'points' by moving 'the point'.

Im fired up today apparently but it seems you never claim youre wrong...or the things your PROVEN to be wrong about because crap, you can always shoot the messenger, discredit the scientist, the science, the poll, the pollster... i mean it never ends.

I consider $200K+ important when it never should have been spent. That's the difference between a conservative and a liberal I guess. I think that $200K is far too much to spend for a night on the town.

I don't understand the difference between this and taking a vacation. It's just a shorter vacation. It seems to me that Obama could take a week off and get less criticism. What if he does this every now and then, but takes fewer vacations,a nd less money overall is actually spent? Would that be okay with everyone?

Let them complain about the trip to New York. It's the reason they are getting slaughtered in every election.

This all goes back to Obama's comment about executives and Vegas. He made his own bed and he's paying for it now.

Captain Generalization strikes again. 'Them' is now anyone who is upset with the misuse of taxpayer dollars, regardless of whether they are Republicans or not. I'm not registered with either party, so I suppose you're technically correct that the Independents didn't fare well in the last presidental election, though I'm quite sure that wasn't the intent of your statement.

And yet you didn't complain about the "Western White House" and the millions spent to allow Bush weeks away from Washington. Or all the money spent to guard the Bush twins as they partied around Austin. Or the money spent to take Jenn's boyfriend to Maine for a weekend family gathering. Or the money spent on Jenna's wedding. Or money spent on the nearly 500 days Bush spent at Camp David. Or....

No, you only complain about the money spent by Obama. That's the difference between you and I, I guess. I see structural expenses that could be trimmed and you see trivial partisan sniping opportunities.

you do the same frickin thing ALL the time, look up on the same page!

It's true that he'll never win with right-wing partisians, but he'll also never lose with his supporters, which makes him similar to most other politicans.

There will be an economic recovery eventually, and Obama supporters will try to take credit for all of it, and the opponents will say it was inevitable and would have been faster/better without Obama. Both opinions are worthless because already know what they are, even before we see the recovery unfold.

It's wasteful spending but when you get a question about how it might not be that wasteful and you don't know how to answer it, you spin back around and say it's just Obama being hypocritical for attacking CEO's.

How many elections have we had since Obama became president? Seriously, in a thread chock full of nonsensical partisan statements (from both sides), this one still stands out.

BTW, I just want to make clear that I'm not "outraged" by this. I would like the White House to disclose how much money "date night" cost, and it's disappointing that they would not.

I must have missed the thread where everyone was up in arms about the cost of all of Bush's trips to Crawford. I know there were some comments made about the frequency of said trips- but that's a different issue, right?

SI

Have you been paying attention to this thread? I stated I'd have no issues with Obama doing work in Chicago or even Hawaii since those are both locations he calls home. But don't let that stop you from trying to insinuate that I have not been even-handed in that regard.

It's not a partisian statement. It's just the stupidiy of Republican politics these days. The country is fighting two wars, has a potential nuclear North Korea, is in the worst recession since the 20's and the big issue is about him going on a date to New York. Do you really think at the end of the day that the people who decide elections actually give a shit about this? It's like the Bill Ayers, Joe the Plumber, Rev. Wright stuff from last year. People don't care about it. They care about their jobs, their family, and their future.

I'm someone who would love to see a strong opposition party. Republicans have better ideas on a lot of issues. But they are stuck with their head up their ass worrying about what kind of fucking mustard Obama puts on his cheeseburger.

Misuse of tax dollars is giving GM billions so they could file bankruptcy. Going on a date to New York is just petty bullshit that belongs on TMZ.