In an earlier post “Government Gone Wild?”, I said:
If the President takes day trips on Air Force One to campaign, why shouldn’t GSA folks take day trips to Hawaii for ribbon cuttings?
A loyal, left-leaning reader (maybe now a former left-leaning reader) challenged the Homa Files fact-checkers as “just plain wrong” since:
The campaign reimburses the federal gov’t for the usage of Air Force One and costs associated with protection of the POTUS directly related to campaigning.
My immediate reply:
There is partial reimbursement …. the campaign pays for “incremental costs not related to official business” …. it’s not prorated …. when he gives a 30 minute Buffett Rule speech and does 3 hour long fund-raisers, the campaign doesn’t pay for 75% (or 85%) of the cost of the trip.
Just to sure, we doubled back on the facts.
Landed on a point-on article by ever right-wing ABC: Presidential Piggybacking: Obama Trips Combine Official, Political Business
The act of presidential piggybacking — coupling official duties, in this case a speech on the economy, with political fundraising — was not pioneered by Obama but is prominently on display this year.
The president’s jet-setting has raised the curiosity and questions from taxpayers about who bears the sky-high costs.
Official presidential travel has traditionally been paid for by taxpayers as part of executive branch operations, while political trips and events are to be covered by a candidate’s campaign committee.
On the occasions that they mix, the costs are to be split.
“Most presidents have doubled up on trips and said they followed the law, which is a complex formula no one really understands. At the end of the day the Federal Election Commission has not been abundantly clear about how the costs of mixed purpose travel should be paid for”
As a rule of thumb, an incumbent president’s campaign is expected to reimburse the government the cost of a first class commercial airline ticket for each person riding Air Force One to or from a political event.
But the amount doesn’t come close to covering the proportional operating cost of Air Force One, or the army of Secret Service agents, White House advance teams, the fleet of Air Force cargo planes transporting the presidential motorcade or the helicopters that often ferry the president from an airport to a remote site.
Air Force One alone cost $179,750 per flight hour in fiscal year 2012.
That figure includes fuel, flight consumables, depot level repairs, aircraft overhaul and engine overhaul. Pilot and airmen salaries are not included because they are paid regardless of the plane’s use.
On a recent three-day, three-state swing that included two official events and eight fundraisers, netting more than $8 million, incurred flight costs alone of $2.1 million, based on the Air Force figure and flight times gathered from press pool reports.
The Obama campaign has reimbursed more than $1.5 million for travel so far this election cycle, according to FEC records.
Read that last paragraph carefully.
80% of the “stops” of the cited trip were campaign-related.
And, just the cost of AF One were over $2 million.
So, you’d expect that the Obama Campaign would have picked up at least $1.6 million of the costs — just for AF one, just on this one trip.
But, according to ABC, the Campaign has only picked up $1.5 million in total, for the entire campaign cycle so far.
C’mon man.
I say to the GSA guys: Go cut some ribbons” … Why not?.
The Homa Files 