Presidential Fundraising Trips Leave Taxpayers With Hefty Tab

[Denny Crane]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/27/presidential-fundraising-trips-cost-taxpayers-thousands/

Presidential Fundraising Trips Leave Taxpayers With Hefty Tab

President Obama left Tuesday for a two-day fundraising tour in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The Democratic National Committee is expected to pick up part of the cost, but if history is any gauge, taxpayers will pick up most of the tab.

By Judson Berger
FOXNews.com

President Obama has the star power to raise millions of dollars for the candidates and organizations he graces with his stump speech.

But when the president hit the road Tuesday for a two-day fundraising tour to pack the party coffers, he also was racking up a $265,000 partisan bill for just one leg of the trip, according to a watchdog group -- part of which taxpayers, regardless of party affiliation, will have to pay.

Obama started out in Las Vegas, where he stumped that night for state Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. On Wednesday night he was to attend a two-tiered donor dinner for the Democratic Party in Los Angeles.

But sandwiched between political appearances, Obama squeezed in some quick public remarks on energy, ironically before burning fuel to Los Angeles, at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base. It was a key stop, because it gives the entire trip an air of official legitimacy and allows the White House to write off part of the trip under rules governing travel, said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union.

"You've got to have some official (business) in the trip somewhere. It becomes almost a game to find some official function to hang the trip on," Sepp said.

The rest, though, is all politics. And, if history is any gauge, the American taxpayer will pick up a large portion of the tab.

Sepp estimated that the purely political part of the trip -- the distance from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and back, with no public events -- would cost at least $265,000, just for air travel expenses.

He said the minimum domestic travel package for the president consists of one Boeing 747, which serves as Air Force One, one back-up dummy plane and one C17 cargo plane. The cost estimate is based on past hourly operational costs for the three aircraft, adjusted for inflation.

White House travel rules, which were developed under the Reagan administration, state that the Air Force pays all costs for the use of the aircraft, but that the government must be reimbursed for airfare, food, lodging and other expenses incurred during whatever portion of the trip is political.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the Democratic National Committee is paying its share for this trip.

"The DNC is paying 100 percent of the legally mandated costs for the trip from Nevada to California, and we are complying fully with all legal requirements," Vietor wrote in an e-mail to FOXNews.com.

But reimbursement for political activities involves a tricky formula, and actual reimbursements typically come nowhere close to compensating the government for the cost of such trips. Secret Service costs, for one, are always footed by the government.

A 2006 report for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that during 2002, political campaigns reimbursed the federal government for $198,000 of the $6.5 million in flight expenses racked up by campaign-related stops made by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. That's 3 percent of the total cost.

Taxpayers paid the remaining $6.3 million.

"The president and vice president can legally participate in campaign and fundraising events for candidates," the report said. "But when they do so, the taxpayer bears most of the cost."

That Obama is raising funds while in office is hardly unusual. Both Bush and Bill Clinton made similar political trips in their presidencies.

Watchdog groups don't suggest that the president shouldn't travel, or even that the president should not travel to political events. Rather, they say the White House should be more forthcoming with its travel expenses and details and establish a more equitable reimbursement program.

"You can't keep the president from traveling. That's what he does. ... No one would suggest he not travel," said Leslie Paige, media director for Citizens Against Government Waste. "What is most important for taxpayers is how much is it costing for this stuff."

"Having more realistic reimbursement rules for political legs of these trips would be quite helpful," Sepp said.

Paige said more transparency is needed, noting it's "very hard" to pry the full costs of these trips from any administration.

The DNC did not respond to a request for comment; Sepp said any DNC reimbursement for Obama's trip this week would be minimal.

 

[Denny Crane]

On one hand, I don't begrudge the guy going out and raising money for the party and its candidates. He's the president, and he has to (and gets to) fly Air Force One for plenty of good reasons.

However, contrast the above with this story, and maybe the timing is just not good. Certainly the symbolism and substance kind of smell.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-27-contracts_N.htm?poe=HFMostPopular

Stimulus projects bypass hard-hit states

By Brad Heath, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — States hit hardest by the recession received only a few of the government's first stimulus contracts, even though the glut of new federal spending was meant to target places where the economic pain has been particularly severe.

Nationwide, federal agencies have awarded nearly $4 billion in contracts to help jump-start the economy since President Obama signed the massive stimulus package in February. But, with few exceptions, that money has not reached states where the unemployment rate is highest, according to a USA TODAY review of contracts disclosed through the Federal Procurement Data System.

In Michigan, for example — where years of economic tumult and a collapsing domestic auto industry have produced the nation's worst unemployment rate — federal agencies have spent about $2 million on stimulus contracts, or 21 cents per person. In Oregon, where unemployment is almost as high, they have spent $2.12 per capita, far less than the nationwide average of nearly $13.

That money "is needed nowhere more than it is needed in Michigan," says Leslee Fritz, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Economic Recovery Office, which is coordinating stimulus efforts in that state. She said officials are generally satisfied with the pace of federal aid, but added, "We certainly feel very intensely the need to move quickly."

The $787 billion recovery package was intended to help turn around the economy using federal money to create jobs, especially in places where the recession has taken the most severe toll. Most of that money goes directly to states to pay for work such as highway repairs, but federal agencies also will spend billions of dollars to do everything from fixing runways and improving national forests to cleaning up nuclear waste.

The first waves of that money flowed unevenly in large part because some federal agencies have moved more swiftly than others to sign contracts for projects funded by the stimulus. In many cases, those first contracts went to projects that began years ago or to companies that have long track records of doing government work.

For example, about $3 billion of the government's first contracts were to speed cleanup of some of the nation's worst nuclear waste sites, scattered over a handful of states. That has created hundreds of additional jobs at the companies that manage the sites, says Matt Rogers, a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, but the impact has been limited to only a few parts of the country.

Liz Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for the White House stimulus effort, said any examination of federal contracts provides "an incomplete picture" of a law that is "providing unprecedented assistance at a record pace to benefit as many Americans as possible." Obama said Wednesday that the stimulus had created or saved 150,000 jobs in its first 100 days. Overall, however, the economy shed more than 1.2 million jobs in March and April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In addition to the contracts it has awarded, the government has asked companies to bid on thousands of additional projects worth upward of $30 billion, according to Onvia, a firm that tracks government purchasing.

Even so, the first contracts have amounted to only about $7.42 per person on average in the eight states with unemployment rates higher than 10% last month. By comparison, government records show it has awarded about $26 worth of contracts per person in North Dakota, whose unemployment rate is the nation's lowest.

 

[Denny Crane]

My point being maybe he should do the job we elected him to do first.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/stimulus-spending-overstated-by-obama-officials/

Stimulus Spending Overstated by Obama Officials

By Michael Cooper

When the Obama administration issued its first quarterly report on the $787 billion stimulus package earlier this month, prompting questions about the rate of stimulus spending, it overstated how much money had been actually been spent by roughly a third.

The report said that “as of May 5, $28.5 billion had already been outlaid.’’ That figure included $11.5 billion in payments the Labor Department reported making to the unemployment trust fund. The Labor Department has now revised its figure, reporting that it has only actually paid $1.1 billion to the unemployment trust fund.

The adjustment appeared on the government’s stimulus Web site, http://www.recovery.gov, in the form of a May 21 footnote that said “Effective May 21, a Department of Labor accounting adjustment was made to reflect an $8.9 billion dollar reduction from the previously reported outlays (i.e.: paid out).” The $10.4 billion over-reported payment to the trust fund was partly offset by the department’s payments to other programs.

That would mean that the government had only actually spent between $18.1 billion and $19.6 billion of stimulus money when the quarterly report was issued.

The administration argues that how much money has actually been paid out is not as significant as how much has been obligated, or promised. In some cases, the obligated money — which was more than $88 billion when the report was released — is enough to get road projects started, or to avert layoffs, since the money will be issued.

The New York Times used the government’s incorrect, higher figures when it reported May 13 that the total value of the spending by federal agencies, tax cuts, and $250 checks that were being sent to Social Security recipients was $45.6 billion — less than 6 percent of the money in the $787 billion economic stimulus package.

The adjusted figures mean that the value of stimulus activity at that time was actually only $35 billion or $36 billion — less than 5 percent of the $787 billion package.

The Labor Department’s adjustment means that the graph on recovery.gov showing its spending to date — which had looked earlier in the month like a sharp inclined plane — now more closely resembles a particularly steep mountain, going up and then down.

Elizabeth Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for the Obama administration, said that a division of the Labor Department had used a different accounting method and over-reported how much money had been disbursed. “Accurate reporting is one of our top priorities and we have committed that when mistakes are made, we will move quickly to correct them and do so publicly - that’s exactly what we tried to do here,” she said.

 

[maxiep]

I'm really hoping they come to their senses and don't spend all of it. What a waste.