The royal presidency
In his recent book Presidential Perks Gone Royal, Robert Keith Gray, a former Eisenhower staffer, revealed that last year the U.S. presidency cost American taxpayers $1.4 billion. Over the same period, the entire royal family cost British taxpayers about $57 million. There’s nothing “royal” about the current level of “presidential perks”: The Obama family costs taxpayers more than every European royal house put together…
The fish rots from the head down, and so do republics. A $1.4-billion president has a defense secretary with a private plane to fly him home every weekend, and a chair of the “White House Council on Women and Girls” with her own Secret Service detail, and all of them ever more detached from the rhythms of American life. In the wake of the Cartagena hooker scandal, the Secret Service with predictable obtuseness imposed a new rule prohibiting agents from having “foreign nationals” in their rooms. The salient fact surely wasn’t that they were “foreign” but that they were hookers. Yet now, at the luxury Moana Surfrider resort, Obama staffers passing through the lobby and bumping into minor princesses and arch-duchesses staying in the cheap rooms on the lower floors won’t even be able to ask them up to their federally mandated ocean-view suites for tips on deficit reduction. In the Brokest Nation in History, it would be unreasonable to expect the president to pretend to have a regular all-American family Christmas for less than five million bucks.
Blowback
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Back in 2010 when The Muffin, David Cameron, and 11 of his ministers flew to Washington to meet President Obama for talks about the global economy, THEY flew business class on British Airways with the hoi polloi. 12 round trip business class tickets from London to DC costs around $50,361.08 or 27.71% of what Americans pay to operate Air Force One for ONE FLIGHT HOUR.
Resist We Much on December 8, 2012 at 8:10 PM
My masseuse knows a baroness.
Seth Halpern on December 8, 2012 at 8:12 PM
rogerb on December 8, 2012 at 8:17 PM
ROFL 20 day 4 million dollar vacays.
tom daschle concerned on December 8, 2012 at 8:19 PM
There’s a growing disconnect between money earned and money spent. During WWII ordinary Joes just getting by, including many servicemen, bought War bonds to support the war. Now, there’s no concept of personal financial sacrifice for the benefit of the country. Certainly Obama has no such conception. He spends money on himself like it’s growing on trees.
Paul-Cincy on December 8, 2012 at 8:22 PM
Oh yeah, I wonder why the media has never asked why Valerie Jarrett gets Secret Service and Amb. Stevens couldn’t get more than minimal security in Libya?
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:24 PM
So they would have you believe.
CorporatePiggy on December 8, 2012 at 8:25 PM
I would say that in any other time, any other place, if a head of state spent money on himself like Obama, people would, if they could, capture him and hang him from the nearest lamppost. But I’m prohibited from saying that today. Since Obama is black, the hateful racial undertones are just too offensive. Same goes for any kind of criticism of Obama, real or imagined.
Paul-Cincy on December 8, 2012 at 8:25 PM
I think you better check out just where, in relationship to others who might be inconvenienced, the ranch in Texas and the home in Kennebunkport are.
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:27 PM
$1.4 billion a year to support the Obamas and their friends/flunkies in a lavish, spare-no-expense lifestyle is beyond the pale — even by the standards of idiot leftists like yourself. There is no legitimate reason in the world why taxpayers should be paying over $100,000 a year for an employee to take care of the Obamas’ dog, just as there is no damn good reason for slumlord Valerie Jarrett to have a Secret Service team protecting her 24/7.
The federal government is $16 trillion dollars in debt, and Obama is running deficits of more than a trillion dollars every year. At a time when he calls on Americans to sacrifice, he and his family continue to live a lifestyle that would make a Roman emperor blush. The only thing more outrageous than the Obamas’ shameless hypocrisy is the MSM’s failure to ever breathe a word about it to the American public.
AZCoyote on December 8, 2012 at 8:29 PM
Remember how much the media ragged on W for golfing while we at war? Aren’t we still at war? W gave it up, The Won doubles down.
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:29 PM
And I haven’t forgotten all of Obama’s stinking czars either. They should be part of the government cuts.
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:30 PM
It also rots from the bottom up. When the rot from one end allies with the rot from the other end, the finish is near.
We are so screwed.
petefrt on December 8, 2012 at 8:33 PM
It was not uncommon to see Vaclav Havel on any given day either walking around or riding the trams to get where he was going. Or sitting drinking tea or eating sausages in sidewalk cafes with the common folk.
JPeterman on December 8, 2012 at 8:36 PM
Obama uses AF1 the way the rest of us use our cars.
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:37 PM
RepealInvalidate by Executive Order or — better yet — Simply Ignore the 22nd Amendment! Who’s going to stop him???The Presidency is Dead … Long Live the King!
/Americans for Obamonarchy
ShainS on December 8, 2012 at 8:39 PM
A thing on Charlie Rose this week on Churchill got me reading a bit about him online. After the war, 1945, Churchill was dead broke, and had to sell his beloved home to survive. Truman too, when he left office, was dead broke. FDR would fly in uncomfortable troop transport planes, with no heat, when he had to fly to Europe. Obama is living and being treated like a king, and he no doubt will be after he leaves office.
Paul-Cincy on December 8, 2012 at 8:40 PM
How far we have sunk when the President himself appears to have no conception of the value of money.
Paul-Cincy on December 8, 2012 at 8:43 PM
Not to depress you but not nearly as low as were going to in the next four years.
Cindy Munford on December 8, 2012 at 8:45 PM
Havel had his favorite restaurants down in Mala Strana (also known as “little town” to tourists), he was always dining down there which is also the location of Embassy Row.
You could look into those courtyards and see Fiats Panda’s, Volkswagan’s or Toyota’s. At the American embassy, their cars consisted of great big Mercedes Benz.
JPeterman on December 8, 2012 at 8:49 PM
Nah, the press was with them and the British press is NEVER nice to the Tories. Further, there was lots of coverage and interviews with passengers and crew here at the time.
My point is that they flew commercial…unless of course you are arguing that the US and UK governments used MK-ULTRA to make hundreds of millions of people believe they only imagined the PM and his ministers boarding and deplaning a BA jetliner.
Never mind, you’re right. I’ll be sure to ask Santa for some new tinfoil so that I can update the antennae my hat. I probably need a new double-secret decoder ring, too.
Resist We Much on December 8, 2012 at 9:12 PM
It’s not uncommon to see major royals eating at restaurants or shopping in the UK. The Duchess of Cambridge still shops on High Street (where secretaries, nurses, etc, purchase $79 dresses) and walks down the street with only one discreet minder. In Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway, it is normal to see members of the royal families, including the kings and queens, walking down the street, eating in cafes, shopping, etc. For some of the royal families, members below the Crown Prince/ss Family can even be found flying coach.
King Christian X of Denmark was legendary in his commitment to be “one of the people and to live like one.” As king, he had always ridden either his bicycle or horse in the morning with neither minders nor a police escort. After the Nazis occupied Denmark, not only did the King remain in Copenhagen for the duration, he continued his routine. The ONLY change that he made was to proudly wear a yellow Star of David on his sleeve.
Resist We Much on December 8, 2012 at 9:24 PM
Don’t bother – it only says “Drink more Ovaltine” – sorry for the spoiler.
/
VegasRick on December 8, 2012 at 9:30 PM
Non sequitur. The word Tory is slang and even if you’re granted that, it’s very far from clear that the Royals are aligned with the “Conservative Party”.
Bread, circuses, and you can bet those passengers were vetted.
As was everyone else.
Prince Harry’s been to Afghanistan you know. In a combat role no less.
Do you have any idea what kind of overhead that photo op incurred?
Look, it’s nice that the British (German) Royals don’t bilk their their country’s taxpayers as blatantly as our Emperor, but wake up – the man of the people schtick is not even vaguely credible.
CorporatePiggy on December 8, 2012 at 10:47 PM
Yeah, all those families making 250k a year taking private planes foreign countries three times a year, dressed in four digit dresses, sending the dog on separate flights, throwing parties with all of the Hollywood elite. Totally upper middle class man, downright salt of the earth.
WeekendAtBernankes on December 8, 2012 at 11:05 PM
Actually, that’s the “Conservative and Unionist Party.”
One thing that very is clear is that the “Conservative Party” (sic) is NOT conservative. You’ll notice in my post that I referred to David Cameron as “The Muffin.” Do you even know what that means? Does the slang word for a vajayjay that is also what people call a cat ring any bells?
Official Monster Raving Loony Party 2015!!!/
Um, my entire point was that they are a helluva lot cheaper than the bloody Obamas. When was the last time that any of the Obamas flew commercial? For that matter, when was the last time their bloody dog flew commercial?
A friend of mine knows one of the sous chefs at the WH. When it rains outside, Bo’s handler holds his leash while he runs on his OWN treadmill.
When so many people are hurting, especially in a constitutional republic, the elected leader and his family shouldn’t be living
likebetter than royals.Resist We Much on December 8, 2012 at 11:55 PM
Black politicians have a penchant for living lavishly
Mormontheman on December 9, 2012 at 12:03 AM
And to think all it took to bring down Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker’s “700 Club” empire was for the public to discover they had an air-conditioned doghouse!
DeepWheat on December 9, 2012 at 11:19 PM