The real cost of the night on Broadway

Comment #6

hummer09 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:29:29 GMT

I think it is truly a sad state of affairs when the President (and first family) waste so much money. There are families suffering this minute due to illnesses or loss of jobs. How sad. I for one will remember all the good times that the first family has had at our expense when he comes up for re-election.

Comment #5

Todd — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:41:24 GMT

@Ms. Pat: There is something called the Kennedy Center right in Washington D.C. that presidents typically go to instead of Broadway because of the enormous cost of doing what he did. He could just as easily had a night on the town in his own city, JUST LIKE WE ALL WOULD DO. Especially if we're on a budget. The Bushes were not "old" and "stodgy" is an opinion. They are sensible people who don't waste a quarter or half million dollars of taxpayer money doing foolish things like a presidenti... [ More ]

Comment #4

Ms. Pat — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:06:52 GMT

The President needs some "downtime" He and his wife are young and they need to be able to do some things unlike the Bushes who were old and stogdy. No one ever complained about how much they spent....

Comment #3

Rick G — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:58:41 GMT

It would have been cheaper to bring the production to the White House!

Comment #2

Todd — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:42:40 GMT

Thanks Emily. I don't think this is the "change" most people envisioned. Meanwhile, "change" is all anyone will have left in their pockets after he's through spending his way out of a recession.

Comment #1

emilyg — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:38:49 GMT

I wish I had taxpayers money to spend on an evening out.

Original Blog Entry: The real cost of the night on Broadway

Todd — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:12:43 GMT

Once again, we American taxpayers are the real losers because the media utterly refuses to scrutinize this president.

As Pravda recently wrote: "American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed".

The cost of a NYC weekend

In another odd twist left unexamined by the media, the White House on Monday said it simply would not release the cost of President Obama's weekend jaunt to New York City, where the First Couple had dinner and caught a Broadway show.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs, keeping the White House press corps in stiches, as he always does, said the Obamas would have preferred using a commercial airline shuttle to New York and back, but the Secret Service would not allow such unprotected travel (ba da bing).

And that was that. No further probing; asked and answered; time to move on.

There was, of course, an ironic element of the trip. In February, Obama scolded corporate executives (while also costing Las Vegas some $130 million) when he said: "You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas, or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime."

But the Chief Executive (Oval) Officer had made a promise to his good wife that after the campaign, they'd take in a Broadway show, and darn it, he meant to keep that promise.

One early estimate (from the New York Post) put the cost at $24,000. Absurdly low. The Daily Mail in London threw out another number — $75,000. Sure, three times as much as the first estimate, but still probably spectacularly low. Remember, joyriding Air Force One around for a few hours over Manhattan a couple months ago cost $250,000, so the cost of the weekend trip was likely not likely that low.

With the White House simply refusing to say how much taxpayer money it spent, here's a helpful way to calculate the cost of the trip:

First, the First Couple (and entourage) flew from the White House to....

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