#403 (1/5) Obamas' $20 Million! Taxpayer-Funded Hawaii Vacations

A SPECIAL NOTE: TODAY marks 17 days before the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that spearheaded the legalizaion of the abortion of the unborn in America. I am in the midst of a 40 day period of prayer and (limited) fasting to honor the memory of the over 55 million ! unborn that have been murdered and the tens of millions of their mothers, fathers, and siblings who have been victimized by this great American Holocaust. 

PLEASE PRAY: 1.) For the girls/women each day contemplating an abortion; the abortionists and their staff; the crisis pregnancy centers seeking to serve the women facing unplanned pregnancies. 2)  For the passage of even more state laws that will effectively help to limit the number of abortions being performed. 3.)The defunding of Planned Parenthood that performs over 300,000 abortions (about 1/3 the toal) for profit and still receives almost 1/2 billion dollars in federal tax dollars. 4.) That one day America might finally pass a constitutional amendment promoting the Sanctity of Every Human Life - in effect oulawing both abortion and euthanasia. 5) For churches/Christians being pro-life- not just claiming to be but demonstrating it conclusively by their actiions.

NOTE: As you consider that we have just had a spending bill signed by the President that doesn't in fact cut spending from our bloated governement. And yet, 1) The first story below speaks to the excessive amount the President and his family have spent on their vacations to Hawaii, and 2) The article following explains how the cost of this President is almost 20 times what the British pay for their royal family. Can you say American royalty?!!

"Obama's Family Vacations to Cost Taxpayers More Than $20 Million" - January 3,  2013 

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-taxpayer-vacation-cost/2013/01/04/id/470102?s=al&promo_code=11788-1#ixzz2H3P6gEmy 

President Barack Obama’s four vacations to Hawaii since becoming president may cost taxpayers “in excess of $20 million, and possibly much, much more,’’ the White House Dossier reports.A breakdown by the Hawaii Reporter shows his trips in 2009, 2010, and 2011 cost about $4 million, much of it for Air Force One. But that doesn’t include costs like flying in advance teams and separate flights Michelle Obama twice took.


When Obama returned from Hawaii to work on the fiscal cliff deal last week and then jetted back to Honolulu, the second roundtrip flight added about $3.24 million to the tab, bringing the 2012-2013 vacation to over $7 million, the Reporter said.

“If we assume the estimates are probably quite low, then it’s likely to the bill for the combined vacations is more than $20 million,’’ said the Dossier’s Keith Koffler.

“Given that much of the cost involves transporting the First Family and its retinue, the Obamas could have saved taxpayers millions by doing what the vast majority of Americans do: taking either one trip a year, or none.’’

Koffler said while some argued the president is justified in returning to Hawaii because that is where he was born and grew up, “how many of us get to go visit our roots for a two week vacation every year?

“The Obamas probably also feel they must go to Hawaii because they are creatures of habit . . . But their allegiance to routine is costing the taxpayers – including those in the middle class Obama claims to care so much about – millions of dollars.’’

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

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"Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion on Obama family last year, perks questioned in new book"

Published: 11:32 PM 09/26/2012 http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/26/taxpayers-spent-1-4-billion-on-obama-family-last-year-perks-questioned-in-new-book/

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks. In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.

Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in. Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”

“The most concerning thing, I think, is the use of taxpayer funds to actually abet his re-election,” Gray, who worked in the Eisenhower administration and for other Republican presidents, said in an interview with TheDC on Wednesday. “The press has been so slow in picking up on this extraordinary increase in the president’s expenses,” Gray told TheDC. Specifically, Gray said taxpayer dollars are subsidizing Obama’s re-election effort when he uses Air Force One to jet across the country campaigning.

Here is a sample of other pricey taxpayer funded perks exclusively reserved for the president:

The president can to appoint high-paid staffers without Senate confirmation: Obama has 469 senior staffers and 226 are paid more than $100,000 a year, according to the book. Seventy-seven are paid as much as $172,000 per year. He also has appointed 43 “czars.”

The president can vacation for free at Camp David: Gray writes that each round trip made to Camp David costs the taxpayers $25,350. It’s also estimated that the combined transportation and personnel costs for a Camp David visit are $295,000 per night.

The president has a full-time movie projectionist in the White House theater: Projectionists sleep at the White House and are there 24 hours a day in case anyone needs to see a movie. “Compared to the 450 times President Carter used the movie theater in his four years in the White House, the average American citizen, according to industry statistics, goes out to see a movie slightly less than five times a year,” Gray writes.

The president’s family’s gets certain travel and security expenses paid while vacationing: “First Lady Michelle Obama drew flack from the media and irate citizens when it was disclosed that, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, she spent 42 days on vacation — within the span of one year.”

The president’s dog gets its own high-paid staffer: “Bo made the news when he and his handler were flown to join the president on vacation in Maine,” Gray wrote about the Obama family dog. “It has been reported that the first family’s dog handler was paid $102,000, last year.”

[bold and italics emphasis mine]