We’re seeing reports that President Obama will be in Seattle Tuesday.
According to the Seattle Times, Airforce One is scheduled to land in town late morning. Obama is reportedly attending two lunches — one downtown, and one at Real Networks’ founder Rob Glaser’s house in Madrona. CHS Capitol Hill Seattle posts some additional speculation about a possible side trip up Capitol Hill.
Maybe Airforce One will buzz the Space Needle, too!
Regardless, traffic will no doubt be completely snarled all over town from late morning til mid-afternoon (at least!). Looks like I’ll be eating lunch at my desk!
The Secret Service support staff/gear C-5 came in today at Boeing Field. Our tax dollars at work.
Ref. video
i think that is just fine.
Gerat video! Thank you for sharing it!
That’s Air Force One –
And yes, it’s just fine.
That is such a throwaway line…
Just fine with me. Takes lots of support staff (and a very large plane) to attend to the president!
Since his mom went to school at UW, I hope President Obama swings by The Ave.
Wasn’t that Mercer Island High School when their mascot was “an islander” (in black face)?
I hope he stops at Boom Noodle . . . just ‘cuz.
Wondering what the intersect of “People who hate the traffic created by the Blue Angels” and “People who hate the traffic created by the President” is?
I’d think it would be significant, but I could see many progressive, liberal Seattleites willing to put up with Obama traffic while bemoaning the war machine represented by the Blue Angels…
@Frank, I don’t think either of my posts were about hating traffic. Just a heads up, so people can plan their day accordingly.
My belief is that having the Angles come to town on a yearly basis is not only a honor, but a respectful tribute to the entire US Military.
As far as the President of the United States (D,R,or I) coming to town is another great honor. Coming to town on the tax payers dime to promote ANY politicians campaign, (D,R, or I) is without any doubt, FLAT OUT WRONG!!! This is not a Democrat, Republican,or Independent thing, it’s a financial accountability thing that our local, state, and federal governments have lost their way about. As tax payers, why are we paying for this trip? Why isn’t the Mom in tennis shoes campaign paying for this trip ? And yes I know, every president has done it. And everyone one of them are wrong for spending tax payer money on any personal campaign. \
Steve
Steve
Bush traffic bad, Obama traffic good. Duh.
E30,
The Mom in tennis shoes’ DOES pay for the Prez to come out West. Her campaign reimburses the government for the cost of flying anyone that takes part in campaigning at the same rate as if they traveled by commercial jet. Total cost to taxpayers for the Prez and Co visiting Seattle? About $60k.
Do you seriously want the Prez to fly out here for a Presidential visit, return to DC, then fly out again for a campaign visit just so we can completely untie the two costs? I imagine we’d never see another DC-based politico out West ever again.
(Cost to taxpayers lifted from Henry Waxman’s analysis of Bush/Cheney’s travel costs in ’02 and ’06: http://www.friendsofjimmarshall.com/presidential%20travel%20from%20Waxman.pdf. True, this analysis doesn’t include the cost to local taxpayers for additional police, etc. But 25 cops at 4 hours overtime at $55/hour still doesn’t budget the number significantly)
Duh… That should be “budge” the numbers significantly…
Another reason to read Wallyhood!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012647005_sonicbooms18m.html
Mike,
If the Government is reimbursed then why are taxpayers paying $60,000 for this campaign? And is that for each of the other campaigns he’s stopping at also? Lets face the truth, the only reason he came to Seattle is to help out a fellow politician. The other stops made while in Seattle is so that he’s not legally here for the soul reason for campaigning on taxpayer money. (Legal? – YES!, Ethical? – NO!!!)
$60,000???!! That didn’t even pay for just the fuel for the 747, the C5’s, and all the other aircraft involved in getting him here and the next campaigns, let alone all the other expenses and wages involved in getting him here and on to other campaigns.
$55.00 an hour???!! I don’t see what all the politicians are whining about, at that price we could afford to hire at least a couple hundred more Police and State Patrol. $55.00 an hour might be what they get paid per hour, but the real cost (overhead & support) is much, much higher.
Forgive me for only skimming the analysis you referenced, but again I saw that it only refers to the highlight expenses.
Steve
Steve,
$60k is the difference between flying commercial and flying Air Force 1 (or the cargo plane for all the folks associated with a Presidential trip) for those taking part in the campaigning part of the trip. The report sited states that the "rate of reimbursement [by the campaigns]… is approximately 2.3% of the costs of Air Force I," which is likely due to administrations finding loopholes to dive into. ("Sorry, Steve can’t get donuts for Sen. Murry, but he can get donuts for any of Obama’s staffers if they’re hungry…").
I pulled that number from the above mentioned report (Section 2.1) where it says, "The President took at least 46 trips involving 82 destinations to conduct campaign-related activities. The […] estimated Air Force I flight cost [was] $4.1 million. The estimated cost of the accompanying cargo plane was $615,000, bringing the total estimated flight costs to $4.7 million." Divide $4.7mil by 82 destinations to get $57,320/destination which I rounded up to $60k to cover things I was too lazy to calculate like inflation.
As to the $55/hour for overtime, I pulled that from this Nov ’05 Seattle PI article that says that "1,755 hours of overtime [yielded] approximately $90,000" in overtime pay. Which is about $55/hour, again rounded up due to my laziness.
This report is from Henry Waxman (huge liberal) during the Bush (huge, well… never mind) administration.
If I’m missing something, please let me know. I’m not in this for the fight, really, but for the education! I spent a lot of energy arguing Bush’s use of federal money to fly from this campaign stop to that campaign stop before I looked more closely at the numbers.
In hindsight, it may have made better sense to use the mileage numbers from the report: "over 45,000" miles at a cost of "$4.7 million" which gives us $104/mile. Assuming 3000 miles from that Washington to this Washington, that gives us $32k for this trip.
And even I can’t believe those numbers — someone please point out the error in my math as I believe the beer drank while writing this may have affected my basic arithmetic skills.
Do any of the above costs cover the the two F15s dispatched to cover AF1 when a seaplane entered the eight-mile security bubble that surrounds it? I doubt it. Nor does it cover the cost to our local 911 system which was completely overloaded by calls after those two jets went super-sonic.
(The fact that everyone felt the need to call 911 after a pair of supersonic booms is the subject of another, far more ridiculed, debate).
The simple truth is that the President doesn’t make it out West very often. Just about any method of accounting that I can think of – dollars per mile or dollars per stop – ends up disadvantaging those of us out West vs. those back east. How many more Presidential visits were paid to West Virginia (five electoral votes, 100 miles) compared to Washington (ten electoral votes, 2450 miles)?