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I was watching the news this morning and there was a lot of talk about how the two presidential candidates are flying all over the country trying to influence the vote. This got me to thinking about who pays for all this air travel?
When Romney goes campaigning, he is flying in a jet that is leased by his campaign and is being flown by a crew that is paid by campaign donations.
When Obama goes campaigning, he is flying in a jet that was purchased by the US taxpayer and is being flown by a crew that is paid using tax dollars.
That got me to wondering if President Obama has to pay to use Air Force One for his campaign so I did a little research.
Turns out we have to pay for Obama's jet and crew. It is what we do to protect and secure our President. All his campaign has to pay for is the "equivalent of the airfare that they would have paid had they used a commercial airline".
The estimated cost of operating Air Force One is just under $180,000.00 per hour and all Obama has to pay is $300.00.
I would like to point out the $180,000.00 is four times the average annual wage in the United States.
A flight from Washington D.C. to Cincinnati, Ohio takes just about two hours.
That means every time President Obama flies from Washington to Ohio to give a campaign speech, he is spending about $360,000.00 in our tax dollars. That is the equivalent of 8 peoples annual income.
So far, in the last two weeks, President Obama has flown on Air Force One every day to attend a campaign event. If he is averaging two hours a day in the air, that means he has spent more money than 112 US citizens earn in a year.
Another way to look at it is that he has spent more tax dollars in the last two weeks than what three US citizens will earn during a working lifetime of forty years.
So much for all that "taking care of the little guy" thing that the Democrats keep harping on about....
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Got no links for you today so I guess you'll just have to surf the internets yourself.
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