President Obama’s Air Force One Usage Bothers Me
Feb 16th, 2009 | By Rob | Category: Government
President Barack Obama escaped to Chicago for this past Valentine’s Day weekend. According to news reports, the President played a little basketball, got a haircut from his favorite barber, and took his wife out to Valentine’s Day dinner. Following Congressional passage of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan and with the auto bailout debate to look forward to this week, his need for a little vacation is understandable.
My burning question about his trip is this: Did he fly commercial?
Bailout companies have come under fire from government leaders, including President Barack Obama, for their corporate jet usage. The Big Three Automakers drove to their second set of Congressional hearings on the auto bailout after criticism for riding to the meetings in their private jets. And Citigroup ditched plans to buy a new corporate jet after reportedly receiving pressure from Obama to cancel it.
The President of the United States, however, has two planes for his own use. And he hasn’t been shy about putting them to use recently, either, with trips to Indiana, Florida, and now Chicago. Reportedly, he even called it a “spiffy ride” on one of his first flights.
Ironically, he even used Air Force One to get to an event where he criticized corporate use of private jets during his efforts to sell the economic stimulus plan. In his town hall meeting in Indiana, 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 taxpayer’s dime.” Yet, that’s exactly what he did this weekend.
President Obama has frequently stated that this is the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. As much as our government leaders would like to pretend that the debt issues which drove this nation were limited to subprime mortgage borrowers and greedy wall street bankers, our government hasn’t been immune to the temptation of taking on debt.
The national debt is currently $10.7 trillion, rising just under $5 trillion under President Bush’s leadership. It’s a large percentage of this American GDP and costs us nearly $500 billion a year. Paying the interest is already the fourth largest government expenditure, and that’s before the $1 trillion in debt which will be added over each of the next two years because of the budget deficit.
I don’t have a problem with the spirit of the economic stimulus plan or with the President’s use of Air Force One in general. I was just bothered by the press coverage of his trip to Chicago. In this debt crisis, I think we’ve got to take a look both at our own personal debt and the government’s debt. I hope President Obama is taking a look at his own spending as he criticizes the spending of others.
President Obama is expected to announce his first budget plan later this month. The government has already taken on $36,000 in debt for every person in the United States. I hope he sticks to his pledge to cut the government’s budget deficit while in office. Because if the government asks me for a bailout, I plan to ask whether POTUS has been flying commercial.
