From the Virginia blog Bearing Drift, “a scandal growing slowly in the shadows came into full bloom under President Barack Obama. With Obama, an institution ripe for abuse was met by a president willing to push its boundaries…”
He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants … And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day. (1 Samuel 8:14, 18)
The people demanded a king. The Lord answered: Be careful what you wish for.
They sought a monarch to raise their status among the nations, but already at the tail end of the Bronze Age kingship meant heavy taxation and profligate leaders. For Israel, the monarchy also would bring a divided nation and centuries of palace-led civic backsliding on their covenant with God.
It all ended badly.
Though we in the US have neither a formal crown nor state religion, that 11th century BCE national decision point serves as a teachable moment. We have allowed the office of our president to evolve into something akin to royalty, not only through increased executive branch powers but also in the abounding perks and grandeur we have bestowed on it in recent decades …
Two recent books argue the US presidency is a public office gone awry, and that a scandal growing slowly in the shadows came into full bloom under President Barack Obama. With Obama, an institution ripe for abuse was met by a president willing to push its boundaries. But whoever wins tomorrow’s election, it is time for a severe public reappraisal of presidential privileges and costs going forward …
As author John F. Groom (whitehouseexpenses.com) observes in The 1.4 Billion Dollar Man: Costs of the Obama White House, Mrs. Obama’s “absolute contempt for taxpayers sometimes takes the form of figuratively flipping the bird at them; for example her two daughters, aged 13 and 10, are listed as ‘Senior Staff’ on the passenger manifest for their trip to South Africa and Botswana.”
The US president’s actual annual personal expenses are hidden within numerous federal budgets, particularly under the Department of Defense, and primarily for transportation. Over 1,000 military personnel are devoted simply to moving the president and his family around, often for vacations, public relations opportunities, and the many campaign and fundraising trips. The presidential helicopter fleet is a particularly galling example which “takes waste and fraud to a new level.” The current fleet has 31 helicopters, which cost $500 million each, and are used almost exclusively to ferry the president and first family from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base. By way of comparison, identical-sized craft used to take US service members into battle zones, hardened against enemy fire, cost $90 million each.
In total, Groom compiles a total of $1.4 billion in annual costs for the first family in 15 main expense categories…
The people demanded a king. The Lord answered: Be careful what you wish for.
They sought a monarch to raise their status among the nations, but already at the tail end of the Bronze Age kingship meant heavy taxation and profligate leaders. For Israel, the monarchy also would bring a divided nation and centuries of palace-led civic backsliding on their covenant with God.
It all ended badly.
Though we in the US have neither a formal crown nor state religion, that 11th century BCE national decision point serves as a teachable moment. We have allowed the office of our president to evolve into something akin to royalty, not only through increased executive branch powers but also in the abounding perks and grandeur we have bestowed on it in recent decades …
Two recent books argue the US presidency is a public office gone awry, and that a scandal growing slowly in the shadows came into full bloom under President Barack Obama. With Obama, an institution ripe for abuse was met by a president willing to push its boundaries. But whoever wins tomorrow’s election, it is time for a severe public reappraisal of presidential privileges and costs going forward …
As author John F. Groom (whitehouseexpenses.com) observes in The 1.4 Billion Dollar Man: Costs of the Obama White House, Mrs. Obama’s “absolute contempt for taxpayers sometimes takes the form of figuratively flipping the bird at them; for example her two daughters, aged 13 and 10, are listed as ‘Senior Staff’ on the passenger manifest for their trip to South Africa and Botswana.”
The US president’s actual annual personal expenses are hidden within numerous federal budgets, particularly under the Department of Defense, and primarily for transportation. Over 1,000 military personnel are devoted simply to moving the president and his family around, often for vacations, public relations opportunities, and the many campaign and fundraising trips. The presidential helicopter fleet is a particularly galling example which “takes waste and fraud to a new level.” The current fleet has 31 helicopters, which cost $500 million each, and are used almost exclusively to ferry the president and first family from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base. By way of comparison, identical-sized craft used to take US service members into battle zones, hardened against enemy fire, cost $90 million each.
In total, Groom compiles a total of $1.4 billion in annual costs for the first family in 15 main expense categories…
