How Much Vacation Time Has Obama Taken? (Infographic)
The Sequester battle rages on in D.C., and now golfing and White House tours are ammo. One I’ve heard brought up more than usual lately is a complaint that Obama has been on these lavish vacations costing tax payers enormous amounts. I guess the reasoning goes something like ‘we wouldn’t even have a national debt if it weren’t for these vacations!’
Hate to break it to ya slim, but Obama’s vacation expenses don’t amount to much. Air Force One costs a lot to operate, and so does shipping the president’s bullet proof vehicles and other equipment in a second plane. He has no choice about what goes with him. He only has a choice about where to go.
Many of our past bourgeois presidents have had their own personal vacation homes to visit during such times. Lucky them. Bush had his enormous ranch in Texas where he vacationed, and Reagan had one in California. Obama comes from more humble backgrounds, so he visits places he calls home, like Hawaii.
So has Obama taken more vacation time than any president in history? Hardly. The only president in the past 3 decades who he has outpaced has been Bill Clinton (though it’s very close). No, it’s actually the Republicans who do the most vacationing. The irony is they are the folks so outraged over these Obama vacations. Check out the Obama vacation infographic below.
Click to enlarge
|
Justin is the publisher The Nevada View, which has earned the recognition in the Washington Post’s “Best State-Based Political Blogs,” as well as being awarded the “Most Valuable Blogger Award” by the local CBS affiliate in 2011. Justin is also an associate at the Ramirez Group in Las Vegas. Follow him on Twitter @McAffee |
9 Responses to How Much Vacation Time Has Obama Taken? (Infographic)
Leave a Reply
We’re Also Here!
All recent (and most less recent) presidents are spendthrifts. They are all the wealthy elite. Obama’s problem right now is he has tried to make the sequester seem severe (when there is no good reason it should be) by implementing silly, high profile service cuts – like White House tours. The implications is that we don’t have the money for such things. The reality is that we do – and his vacations to Hawaii make that fact clear.
The sequester merely reduces increases in spending. It doesn’t actually decrease overall spending compared to previous years. But our government is chronically incapable of dealing with the very real need to spend less money today than they did yesterday. Funny, so many of us have been doing that for years now. I’ve got the daily cost of my lunch down to $1-2.
Obama has simply made himself the poster child for this spendthrift insanity by making some politically inept moves that betray the deceit that should have been obvious to begin with.
I think most of the Americans would be a lot happier if Obama did any work at all. He has been the most ineffective president since Jimmy Carter and I heard that Jimmy comes in above Hussein Obama. All he does is spend more and more including the free phone hand out. I am sure that is not all; but I do not see the need for free phones. Is this handout going to include that lady’s gasoline and rent like she said. “I am soo glad Obama won the election. I won’t have to pay for my gasoline or my rent. Are these people dreaming? Granted, Obama has been making us pay for all his nonsense but why the cell-phones? Is he going to pay them by the month? How will he handle that one?
Actually, the Obama phone should be called the Reagan phone. That’s when the program actually started… look it up.
Bush so called vacation spot was called the “Western White house”, for a reason. He visited with nearly twenty heads of state in Crawford, and in 2002 he wired his ranch so secure video conferencing with intelligence officials could take place. By going to a place he owned was cost effective for the Tax payer. The cost of the four Hawaii vacations the Obamas has taken during Christmastime 2009-2012. According to a detailed breakdown by the Hawaii Reporter, the annual excursions in 2009, 2010, and 2011 cost about $4 million, much of it attributable to the expense of taking Air Force One, at an hour rate of about $180,000, on an eighteen-hour round trip journey to Honolulu and back. But $4 million almost certainly underestimates the true tally, as it does not include many miscellaneous items like the cost of flying advance teams out to Hawaii and separate flights Michelle Obama took in 2010 and 2011, when she left ahead of her husband, who was forced to stay in Washington to finish up work with Congress.
This year, Obama returned from Hawaii to complete a deal on the Fiscal Cliff and then jetted back to Honolulu, where he is now engaged in Part 2 of his vacation. The second round trip flight added about $3.24 million to the tab this time, bringing the cost of the 2012-1013 vacation to well over $7 million. Keep in mind the cost of living is each location, the Bush ranch has accommodations for the secret service, where the vacation home in Honolulu does not. Bush used his vacation home as an extension of the White House and Obama does not. All this information is easy to find on the CBO.
The flight time on Air Force One is nearly identical between Bush and Obama at 4 years. Accommodations for the Secret Service isn’t a significant amount to even bring up. Bush’s time spent going from Crawford to D.C. amounts to a lot of $$. Keep trying.
missing the point. Bush was working at his ranch. It was an extension of the White House. (you know, that building that the president closed but belongs to the people) Obama doesn’t work on his vacations. And I don’t recall Bush ever playing golf with Tiger at a million a pop. Not buying it. Obama is a spendthrift and is spending our country into oblivion. Period
Presidents work no matter where they go. This one just happens to be someone you disagree with because you listen to right wing propaganda… and therefore you are nitpicking at every little thing you can… again because you have no real objections to what he’s doing.
Most of the debt problems we have today are because of Bush’s tax cuts, the two wars, and the economic crash that was caused by deregulation of the securities and loans sectors by conservative garbage ideology.
So tired of the endless ignorance from the tea baggers in this country.
No, by the relaxing of loan requirements (by both parties) with the stated goal of increasing home ownership – nevermind if the would be owners could actually afford the home.
Both parties nationalized mortgage risk to gain votes and power. Now the whole country pays for the cost of those votes and power that the politicians received.
The idea that the government lowered loan standards is just a false Orwellian 1984 rewriting of history. The fact is that the private sector got into the subprime loan business on their own. Sallie and Freddi didn’t jump in until much later, and they were a much smaller fraction of that market.