Obamas head out on separate vacations
President Obama is headed to the West Palm Beach, Fla., area for the long holiday weekend, while First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are headed out west for a ski weekend.
"The president is looking forward to a couple rounds of golf this weekend," White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, explaining his separate trip to Florida.
The first lady and Malia and Sasha, meanwhile, have made a tradition of going on a ski trip out West around this time of year with family friends.
Though Mr. and Mrs. Obama won't spend the weekend together, they did get to celebrate Valentine's Day on Thursday by going out to dinner at MiniBar, an upscale, trendy restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, the Obamas aren't the only Washington lawmakers leaving town this weekend. Congress is skipping out for a week-long recess, even though they have just two weeks left to address the $1.2 trillion "sequester" budget cuts that are set to kick in next month.
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Since you are for honesty, I will honestly tell you, your posts are frequently nauseating in their praise of one of the worst presidents in this nation's history.
toad- no, Bush's vacations were not free...but please show me where any of their vacations cost the tax payers as much as the ones the obama's take:
"Michelle Obama recently revealed that she and President Obama don't give Christmas gifts to each other. They merely say, "We're in Hawaii," and that's Christmas gift enough.
But actually the present is from taxpayers, and it's an expensive one.
The total cost to taxpayers of Obama's vacations to Hawaii since becoming president is likely in excess of $20 million, and possibly much, much more. During a time of budget deficits that threaten the nation's security and its future, the Obamas have chosen to maintain a "family tradition" and vacation halfway around the world instead of finding far cheaper alternatives closer to home.
The $20 million figure is based on estimates of the cost of the four Hawaii vacations the Obamas have taken during Christmastime 2009-2012. According to a detailed breakdown by the Hawaii Reporter, the annual excursions in 2009, 2010, and 2011 cost about $4 million, much of it attributable to the expense of taking Air Force One, at an hour rate of about $180,000, on an eighteen-hour roundtrip journey to Honolulu and back.
New Year's Day, 2012
But $4 million almost certainly underestimates the true tally, as it does not include many miscellaneous items like the cost of flying advance teams out to Hawaii and separate flights Michelle Obama took in 2010 and 2011, when she left ahead of her husband, who was forced to stay in Washington to finish up work with Congress.
This year, Obama returned from Hawaii to complete a deal on the Fiscal Cliff and then jetted back to Honolulu, where he is now engaged in Part 2 of his vacation. The second roundtrip flight added about $3.24 million to the tab this time, bringing the cost of the 2012-1013 vacation to well over $7 million.
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.
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.
The Obamas get plenty of vacation. They have sojourned every summer in Martha's Vineyard except for last year, when campaigning and pre-election concern about appearances got in the way. They often take a side trip somewhere else during the year, and Michelle goes skiing annually out West.
At the very least, they could spend their Christmas holidays at Camp David or at one of the many fine resorts outside of Washington, which would require only the use of the presidential helicopter to get them there.
If they must find a warm haven, a rental home on the Gulf Coast, the Atlantic shore of Florida, or even Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands could easily be arranged at a fraction of the price of getting to Hawaii.
Some argue that Obama is justified in returning to Hawaii because that is where he spent his formative years. But 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. While there, they do the same things and visit the same places every year. 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.
Which brings us to OBAMA 5-0."
can't understand why either are taking vacations right now-- ALTHOUGH, most of the media is only making a spotlight of Congress leaving town-
Meanwhile, our representatives see fit to go on vacation. While I am not certain if Congressional vacations cost the taxpayer anything, I am certain POTUS and has family cost us millions of dollars when they take these vacations.
It doesn't matter which political party they belong to, all of this feels like a slap in the face.
Meanwhile, we all - regardless of which party we prefer - get more propaganda emails, while they continue to gloss over core problems.
I was with you until your final sentence. Especially the last word and number. I will not vote for her. She's out of touch.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-24/hillary-clinton-on-china-and-the-rest-of-the-world
China's history of economic manipulation and using its communist stance to gt big (while the US gives taxpayer money to corporations propping up shop over there), and she bleats about their going from communism to competition-based, whatever that garbage means... we've been told for years how competition from China was doing better... she's full of non-sequiturs and is out of touch. I've posted plenty of details on plenty of tangents, and no hippie would allow such abuse of human rights or the environment, so if anyone calls her hippie they're absolutely wrong on that as well... she was also on Walmart's board of directors, though to be fair that might have been long before walmart became a parasite to corporate welfare and using price wars and other predatory tactics...
Your turn. Convince us she is the best candidate to run this country. Unless I already just did?