Claim: President Obama's November 2010 trip to India will cost taxpayers $200 million per day.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2010]
I have no first hand knowledge of this, just passing along.
I could not belive this was true (but had also heard it on the air, thought was hype), but when you Google it and read a number of sites, it does appear to be true. Tell him to stay
Just in case some of you don’t follow current events as closely as I do (yes, I am a "news-junkie") you may have missed the following information since it never appears in our wonderful newspapers or on most TV news.
The Barack Obama family is leaving tomorrow for a ten day trip to
1) The entourage will include THREE THOUSAND people
2) FORTY aircraft will be making this trip
3) TWO marine helicopters are being dismantled, flown to India, put back together to fly the Obamas around the country
4) The entire 500 room Taj Mahal Hotel has been reserved for this group
5) Cost is estimated to be $200 million PER DAY for ten days
6) Keep this in mind when you get the next notice of an increase in your taxes!!!
No one should ever wonder why taxpayers are angry about this type of extravagance while most citizens are struggling with day-to-day costs of living, etc.
Origins: On 2 November 2010, the Press Trust of India published an article about U.S. President Barack Obama's upcoming
About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments. [President Obama] will also be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there. "Except for personnel providing immediate security to the President, the US officials may not be allowed to carry weapons. The state police is competent to take care of the security measures and they would be piloting the Presidential convoy," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.
The information from that Indian article was quickly picked up and repeated as fact by a number of media outlets in the U.S. and elsewhere, but its veracity is dubious. The only source for the claim about the mind-blowing
Any presidential trip abroad (the purpose of this trip is official business, not a personal "vacation," as claimed by some sources) involves considerable expense to transport and house security officials and presidential aides and staffers, and those costs will likely be on the higher side for this trip
since President Obama will be traveling to a city which was recently the target of terrorist attacks
and will be attending the
heightened security, as well as the presence of additional numbers of
However, citing a cost figure of
And, as the the Wall Street Journal observed, the details of the report are "demonstrably incorrect," and it certainly isn't the case that the U.S. will be picking up the tab for everyone traveling with the president:
The report is demonstrably incorrect. It says the White House had blocked off the entire Taj Mahal Hotel in
Additionally, U.S. officials disclaimed numeric figures cited for the President's Asian visit as "wildly inflated" and "absurd":
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell also outright rejected the claim that 34 warships would patrol the Mumbai coast while Obama is in town. "I think there has been a lot of creative writing that's been done on this trip over the last few days," he said. "We obviously have some support role for presidential travel ... but I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd, this notion that somehow we are deploying 10 percent of the Navy, some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier in support of the president's trip to Asia — that's just comical. "Nothing close to that is being done, but the notion that president would require security as he travels to India and elsewhere should not come as a surprise to anyone," he said. A military official also [said] the warship claim was inaccurate. The official knew of no such plans and said, besides, a carrier strike group typically has
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor shot down the $200 million-a-day figure: "The numbers reported in this article have no basis in reality. Due to security concerns, we are unable to outline details associated with security procedures and costs, but it's safe to say these numbers are wildly inflated," Vietor said.
Moreover, CNN noted that the cost of similar trips undertaken by other presidents came nowhere close to the
For example, an 11-day trip by then-President Bill Clinton to Africa in 1998 involving about 1,300 people cost
While the exact cost of Obama's 10-day trip to Asia is not known to the public, an examination of similar presidential excursions in the past support the likelihood that the $200 million-a-day figure is exaggerated.
The U.S. government isn't likely to be forthcoming with a cost breakdown for President Obama's Asia trip (particularly since a large chunk of the expenses necessarily involve security arrangements, which obviously can't be publicly outlined or detailed), but it's probably safe to say that the ultimate cost will be well short of the claimed
Some readers who inquired about this item amusingly garbled its details, mistaking Mumbai's
Is it true that President Obama rented the entire
Last updated: 5 November 2010
 | Sources: |
Foster, Malcolm. "Political Tension May Overshadow G-20, APEC Summit." The Moedsto Bee. 4 November 2010. Martinez, Luis. "Pentagon Dismisses Reports of 34 Warships for Obama Trip Security." ABCNews.com. 4 November 2010. Robinson, Dan. "Obama Aims to Expand, Strengthen Relationships on 10-Day Asia Trip." VOANews.com. 1 November 2010. Weisman, Jonathan. "Fuzzy Math Dogs Obama's Asia Trip." The Wall Street Journal. 4 November 2010. CNN.com. "Debunking the Myth: The Cost of Obama's Trip to Asia." 5 November 2010. Economic Times. "Force One Inspect Venues of Obama's Visit." 3 November 2010. FOXNews.com. "Security Entourage Earning Epic Reputation Ahead of Obama India Visit." 4 November 2010. Press Trust of India. "US to Spend USD 200 Mn a Day on Obama's Mumbai Visit." 2 November 2010. Press Trust of India. "White House Paraphernalia to Be in India for Obama Visit." 4 November 2010.