Former Laura Bush flack and L.A. Times columnist Andrew Malcolm, now at the deeply propagandistic editorial page of Investor's Business Daily, greets the new year with this:
New Obama vacation costs uncovered; They now exceed $70 millionOmigod! $71 million! Over seven years!
As Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama, family, friends, pets and staff enjoy their half-month-long Hawaiian vacation, the Secret Service finally complied with a court order to release some Obama vacation expenses from two years ago.
That's how eager the Obama administration is about being transparent when it comes to spending large sums of taxpayers' money on itself.
As with the slow-motion releases of Hillary Clinton's emails, the idea of bureaucratic stalling, of course, is that the details become "old" news more likely to be ignored by media. Fortunately, we're not on vacation this week, so we can help the president out. Here goes:
The new expense reports, heavily-redacted allegedly for security reasons, push the total known costs for vacations during Obama's reign to nearly $71 million -- with another full year to go. That's about $10.1 million per year in known expenses.
Okay, let's see: The estimated population of the U.S. in 2014 was 318.9 million, according to Google. If each of the 318.9 million Americans paid an equal share of that $71 million, every resident's cost would have been ... approximately 22 cents. Paid out over seven years.
That's a bit more than three cents per person per year.
Does that sting, Andrew? Email me -- I'll happily pay your share.
