Yes boys and girls, it wasn’t too long ago that nutjobs were ranting that President Obama’s Inauguration cost was somehow (in their “brains”) 4-5x bigger than Bush’s 2nd term Inaug, but cost less. Yeah, ok. Well, while the geniuses are still adding up the math on that one (and silent about Obama’s 17 day Rush-to-spend on his Stick-it-to-us plan), I noticed something that makes his first day gala look cheap.
President Obama is going to have (28) new Presidential helicopters at a cost of $400,000,000+ each for a total of $11,000,000,000+. Yeah, the Bush Admin struggled with this too. They started off with a proposal for US manufacturers, then tried to go cheap and have the President of the United States flown around in some European-helos. The outcry against that was so much that he went “Buy American.” Since then, the costs have skyrocketed. They fubar’d it, and they admit it (Andy Card does at least).
Now we get to see if President Obama continues the program. So far, he’s continuing it. The program to buy a few squadrons of personal tricked-out helos to get him to/fro home to the airport runs on. Will he decide to cancel the program, save the $11 Billion (which could be spent on a new high speed rail line from SoCal to Vegas!) and kill a few thousand jobs at Lockheed Martin instead? So far….nope.
Ahhhh decisions decisions. In the meantime, with every day he decides NOT to decide, the money continues to get spent on a boondoggle of a program. Suddenly, that million-bucks-a-second Congressional back and forth over the stick-it-to-us bill seems…not so shocking, and his millions spent on the Inauguration seem like a joke (he could be inaugurated 3-4 times for the price of ONE of his pimped up helos).
Sen. McCain likes to talk about earmarks a lot. And that’s important. I want to go line by line through every item in the federal budget and eliminate programs that don’t work and make sure that those that do work, work better and cheaper.
-Senator Barack Obama 10/7/08
(I love the internet)
wow, just wow. discontinue the program. that would be for the best. what is wrong with the ones that bush was using?
We just bought this guy a brand new limousine to the tune of something close to $600,000.
The mileage on it is still low, let’s use it since it’s already paid for.
Furthermore, why could we possibly need 28 new helicopters.
Why not six?
Each chopper costs as much as Air Force One? I’d say just buy a bunch more Air Force Ones and let the public take turns riding around in them. Surely it would be just as good a use for the taxpayers money as carting Barack and Michelle to their Valentines Day date in Chicago!
Bush was the one who signed the contract for these helos. The ones being used now our 20 years old. The Presidential helo is always flown in a group of 3-5 so that no one will know which one has the POTUS in it.
Thanks John. Haven’t heard from you in a while. I believe the initial post points that out though. Were you just reacting to the title and skipping the actual text?
Wow, with moments of crisis that should do something with these bill
Follow-up to helicopter-gate:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRYIaLv9zLfk&refer=home
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach
Great job Larry-very sincere thanks!
I hope we’ll see the program fixed, and not just “looked into” as Bush and Obama have promised (recall if you will that Sec Gates ordered a close examination of all programs that were having trouble w follow through back in 2007 (this led to a cut in F35 orders, a little spat w the USAF over their preference for F22′s instead of Predators, and…I think the helicopter program; see IP link).
no bs, thanks Larry!
Well, if true, this is not good.
From WPXI: