Yet Another Costly Inconvenience By The White House

Received by way of a co-worker:

Just a note of reality that our liberal family and friends probably don't know or care to admit.

As a pilot I get e-mail notices from Air Traffic Control whenever there is a significant impact on airspace. The most common is when airspace is shut down due to a presidential visit.

I have never received so many as these past two years during which the current resident of the White House has made multiple trips weekly via Air Force One for campaign/fund raising stops all around the country. I most frequently get notices that impact NY and Boston. These trips involve multiple government aircraft to haul all the staff, security personnel, and accompanying entourage along with the presidential limo and numerous support vehicles - all on the taxpayer's dime. In other words, your dime and mine.

Burning literally tons of fossil-based jet fuel, it costs roughly $180,000 per hour to run Air Force One alone, not counting all the other support aircraft and vehicles. A separate giant C-5 cargo plane burning equal tonnage of fossil fuel always accompanies the presidential 747 to carry the limo and Secret Service vehicles. This doesn't even take into consideration the thousands of unreimbursed state, county, and local man hours and fuel costs for police cars, helicopters, buses, vans, delivery trucks, etc. expended on additional security, traffic and crowd control.

On just Thursday this week, both New York and Manchester/Nashua [New Hampshire] airspace will be shut down for presidential campaign stops. So, let's understand the actual financial statement here - political campaign fundraising (A) going to the president's reelection (B) and party war chest (C) - not the federal treasury (D) or local budgets (E) - is being funded from the federal treasury (D) and local budgets (E). Does anybody here see the obvious disconnect?

So if we're going to talk about deficit reduction and carbon footprints, let's get serious here.

When both George H.W Bush and George W. Bush were in office they would visit the family vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the former Pease Air Force Base (now a commercial airport and an Air National Guard airfield) in New Hampshire. There was little disruption of commercial and general aviation traffic and security was easier as there was still a military presence at the field and at the nearby Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. I have a feeling the Bushes were far more cognizant of the inconveniences and the cost their presence caused and worked to keep it to a minimum. Not so with the present occupant of the White House.