Walsh: Bush's trip for McCain is on you

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

In addition to the traffic jams and delayed school hours and disrupted bus service and closed condo parking garages, taxpayers will be footing most of the bill for the president's 19-hour getaway in the reddest state in the nation.

The tab includes overtime for Highway Patrol troopers, Summit County sheriff's deputies, Salt Lake City and Park City and even Kamas police officers. It includes flying four Marine helicopters up and down Parleys Canyon. It includes dozens of rooms at Stein Ericksen - $185 to $545 a night at summer "value" rates - for the president, his staff and Secret Service detail. And it includes the $56,500/hour cost of flying Air Force One and the $7,000/hour bill for the cargo plane full of black suburbans that tag along.

The final cost wouldn't matter if the president had touched down on nominally official business - like his speech to the American Legion two years ago. But this trip was purely political, the president jet-hopping his way through five Western states to raise money for GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Republican parties in swing states (not Utah).

While the grubby masses were kept at binoculars' length, Utah's conservative elite plunked down $500 or $10,000 for a daytime grip-and-grin with the leader of the free world in one of Salt Lake City's most Democratic neighborhoods. About 60 emptied their bank accounts for a $70,000 dream date with the chief executive at Mitt Romney's Deer Valley log cabin.

Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_9443301

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[fasttense]

1. Oh my god. I don't know where to begin.

First, do these people have more money than brains? Really, who would pay to be near the biggest, most ignorant war criminal currently alive? I guess a bunch of stupid rich people. Even McSame couldn't bear to be so close.

"The man who will benefit most from this taxpayer subsidy - McCain - didn't even show up."

Second, We the People are stuck with his highness's bills.
"Federal law requires that candidates and political parties reimburse the cost of travel to and from fundraising events. To get around those rules, the president multi-tasks. In 2006, Bush tacked on a fundraiser for Sen. Orrin Hatch; the Utah senator had to pay $22,000 to defray the costs.
This trip, White House schedulers added a series of mostly contrived "official" events: a tour of a Mesa cable company, a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, a visit with LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson and a volunteer award on the tarmac. None alone would merit a presidential visit. Put together, they make a fundraising jaunt look like state business.
In a "back of the envelope" estimate, The Washington Post figured Bush's campaign travel in 2002 cost $15.7 million. Taxpayers covered 97 percent of the cost of those partisan trips."

[Ian David]

2. ...

[LynnTheDem]

3. Good fucking grief...stunning.

Just deeply unbelievably stunning.

:wow:

[hisownpetard]

4. Thanks, AV, for ruining my Sunday afternoon. Shouldn't this be illegal?

Oh, wait... it's George Bush.
Doesn't matter, even if it were.


:nuke:

[bluesmail]

5. $'s & $'s & $'s & $'s $'s & $'s & $'s &.....

[sutz12]

6. Shouldn't that read "Looter of the Free World?" nt

:evilgrin:

[Supersedeas]

7. purely political -- that is the Bushist legacy

[guitar man]

8. normally, this would bother me

but hey, if the worst president in history with his 20% approval rating wants to attach himself to McCain's campaign, hey, tell me what my part of the bill is, I'm glad to help :evilgrin: