Taxpayers Spent $1.5 Million on President Obama's Personal and Political Use of Air Force One Over Labor Day Weekend
A recently obtained U.S. Air Force document revealed that taxpayers dished out over $1.5 million in transportation flight costs for President Barack Obama's Labor Day weekend personal and fundraising commitments.
The government watchdog website, Judicial Watch, announced this week that it obtained, through a Freedom of Information Act request, a copy of an Air Force One expense record for this past Labor Day weekend, which shows that over $1,539,402 in taxpayer funds were spent on flight costs alone for Obama's various non-official trips that weekend.
To start his Labor Day weekend, the president flew from Washington, D.C. to Westchester, N.Y. on Friday Aug. 29 to take part in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. In Westchester, Obama attended a fundraising BBQ hosted by former UBS Bank CEO Robert Wolf.
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Later that day, Obama flew to Providence, Rhode Island where he attended another DNC fundraiser, which was hosted by Nortek CEO Richard Bready. The Air Force document shows that the flight costs to transport Obama to the two Friday DNC fundraisers cost taxpayers over $527,192.
On Saturday, Aug. 30, Obama was to attend a wedding that was held in Westchester, the very town he left to go to Providence earlier that day. Although Obama was supposed to fly back to Westchester Friday night, he decided to use additional taxpayer dollars to fly back to Washington D.C. to sleep in his own bed, then fly back to Westchester on Saturday morning.
Not included in the aforementioned $1.5 million, flying back to Washington Friday night cost taxpayers an additional $295,277.
As White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, flying back home to D.C. that night allowed the president to "sleep in his own bed, do a little work … spend time with his family and then travel back to New York."
On that Saturday, Obama flew back to New York to attend the wedding of White House Chef Sam Kass and MSNBC pundit Alex Wagner. He flew back to Washington D.C. later that day with a round trip flight cost of $358,490.
On Labor Day Monday, Obama flew to Milwaukee, at a round trip flight cost of $653,718, to deliver a campaign speech at the city's "Laborfest 2014."
In commenting on Obama's use of taxpayer dollars to fund his personal trips, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that presidents should not have the right to use taxpayer funds for the benefit of political campaigns.
"This Labor Day back-and-forth shows President Obama seems to confuse Air Force One with Uber. President Obama abuses not only taxpayers with this unnecessary travel, he strains an already overstretched military and Secret Service that is in crisis and can't even guard the front door of the White House," Fitton asserted. "The new Congress could do worse than to reform presidential travel so taxpayers aren't gouged by candidates and campaigns benefitting from the political use of Air Force One."
According to The Week, Obama has used Air Force One to attend over 398 political fundraisers since he took office in January of 2009. As of May, Obama had taken over 1,000 trips, for both official and personal use, since the start of his presidency.
Although president's are really only allowed fly cost-free for official use, presidents as far back as Ronald Reagan have taken advantage of taxpayer-funded flights for political and campaign purposes.
An Associated Press article from 2004 pointed out that when President George W. Bush was seeking reelection, he had used taxpayer dollars to fly onboard Air Force One for campaign purposes more than any other president before him.
In total, Bush flew on 1,675 Air Force One flights during his 8-year presidency, a feat Obama will likely not match.
