Ten Million Dollars a Day

Hey, remember a few weeks ago when President Obama made that trip to India? People were justifiably upset that, in these tough economic times, a president would spend so much taxpayer money on what amounted to a high-profile vacation. The most vocal advocates for restraint and accountability? Some rather well-known conservative commentators.

Rush Limbaugh:

You have a guy and a family who thinks this nation owes him.  And while they're in a position to, they are going to live off of this country as much as they can…15 airplanes, 1,000 people, 200 rooms in one hotel. And that's just one hotel. For a ten-day trip—Ten million a day!

Sean Hannity:

Look, I want the president to be secure, but 1,000 people? Ten million dollars?…He needs half the Taj Mahal Hotel? Why? What is the point of this?

Glenn Beck:

A dozen warships, possibly. I don't know. Ten million dollars a day while in India. I don't know. The president has blocked off 250 hotel rooms. Do we even know if he's traveling with 1,000 people? Do we know if that's true? No one knows any of the details of this trip, the real cost of the trip. One thing we can say for certain is it's going to be quite expensive.

If you can look past the usual mean-spiritedness, these are sincere, thought-provoking appeals for greater public awareness of an issue the public should absolutely be more aware of.

The best part is, the facts are presented fairly, rather than exaggerated to absurd extremes. Sure, some of the numbers are estimates, and some of them—as Beck freely admits—are guesses, but they're reasonable estimates and educated guesses. The information was obtained from reliable sources, and the fact that it's more or less in line with similar (and also extravagant) presidential trips in the recent past only adds to its credibility.

Liberals in the media begrudgingly sided with their enemies on this one, because how could they not? Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck are spot-on. Obama made an excessively-costly overseas trip financed by us—the taxpayers—and conservatives rightly called him out on it. In the future, perhaps, politicians will think twice about treating our money like it's their own, lest they attract the same negative publicity.

Oh, right, none of that happened, because this is what they actually said:

You have a guy and a family who thinks this nation owes him. And while they're in a position to, they are going to live off of this country as much as they can…40 airplanes, 3,000 people, 500 rooms in one hotel. And that's just one hotel. For a 10 day trip—Two hundred million a day!

—————

Look, I want the president to be secure, but 3,000 people? Two hundred million dollars?…He needs the whole Taj Mahal Hotel? Why? What is the point of this?

—————

Thirty-four warships, possibly. I don't know. Two hundred million dollars a day while in India. I don't know. The president has blocked off 800 hotel rooms. Do we even know if he's traveling with 3,000 people? Do we know if that's true? No one knows any of the details of this trip, the real cost of the trip. One thing we can say for certain is it's going to be quite expensive.

A Google search for "cost of Obama's trip to India" brings up exactly two types of articles:

1. Obama's trip to India costs $200 million PER DAY!!!
2. How dumb do conservatives have to be to believe Obama's trip to India costs $200 million per day?

The first is stupid nonsense; the second is a sadly-necessary response to the first. Both are distracting and counter-productive. So great job, conservative media! Way to get people talking about wasteful government spending.^[1]

1. Obviously, the Crazy Numbers made the story a much bigger deal than it would've been otherwise, which raises an interesting question: Would Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck rather promote conservatism in a way that makes it sound reasonable, so as to win over as many non-conservatives as possible, or would they rather keep creating controversies like this one, which get their names in the news but win over approximately no one?
    All three would undoubtedly insist on the former, but the Two-Billion-Dollar-Trip-to-India debacle is a pretty strong argument for the latter.