You can't make this stuff up.
Our president and the First lady are enjoying the president's fourth luxury vacation this year, at the ultra-pricey Martha's Vineyard.
Like many of us, the Obamas will unfortunately be downsizing their vacation this time. Their normal rental, the 28-acre Blue Heron Farm has been sold, so they will be reduced to making do at a $7.6 million, 5,000-square foot retreat on nine acres located in Chilmark on the western tip of the island that includes its own basketball court. They'll be there eight days, so the American taxpayer will probably be picking up the tab for a full two weeks. Martha's Vineyard in season is extremely pricey.
Now, no details of what that's costing us, but we do know that over 70 rooms have been booked for the Secret Service and the rest of the entourage not deemed worthy to spend the night on call at the estate. Each room costs $345 per night. mere hovels by Martha's Vineyard standards. The Secret Service normally gets there a few days before the First Family, so let's figure ten days. That works out to well over $240,000, just for lodging for the help. With food and incidentals, we're probably talking around $300,000 plus on the conservative side, not counting transportation and fuel.
And speaking of transportation, President Obama decided to commandeer two MV-22 Ospreys, military aircraft that carry 24 passengers each and cost $11,000 per hour to fly. One of them held the first family, its luggage and some of their more favored servants. The other one was - wait for it - a dog taxi used to fly in the First Dog, Bo.
Round trip cost for two MV-22 Ospreys, about $88,000, not including maintenance.
This also doesn't include the cost of transporting the president and his wife's entourage who didn't manage to hitch a ride in the ospreys. Or any additional Cadillac Escalades or other vehicles they required.
Another little item we have to account for is construction costs for each one of the president's little idylls. Whenever the president travels, extensive renovations have to be performed for the length of his stay to deal with things like security, advanced communication networks and the like. And then these renovations have to be removed and the house returned to its original condition when he leaves. This can cost anywhere up to several hundred thousand dollars.
I've never had much good to say about President George W. Bush, but because he made a point of vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, the American taxpayer only had to do this once. We've already had to do it four times this year alone for President Obama.
Our final tab for President Obama and his family's little taste of the sweet life? Probably around a million dollars, give or take a few greens fees or the odd less than four star meal. That comes out to about $125,000 per day...a lot more than the majority of families in America live on for a full year.
President Obama 'gets' the middle class, all right. Good and hard, and without any lubrication.
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