Cheap-*** President.Follow

Looks like the inauguration isn't really being paid for entirely with private funds after all.



Now I realize that there are inevitably going to be security expenses for any government function. But really, trying to foist the cost of this off onto the taxpayers in DC is really just shameful. Personally I say don't provide any security and maybe someone will successfully off Duh-bya. That'll teach 'em.

Article

To be fair, it appears the reason that the money is coming out of their Homeland Security budget is because it's for security of the inauguration, and not for booze and hookers for the party afterwards. Or so they say.

I live near DC, and you know, they close more than just teh white house lawn. DC is 64 square miles, 11 million seems about right.

Well the way around it would be to have a small, private inauguration, inside the Capitol, and with no speeches or anything. I wouldn't really have a problem with it, but people like tradition and ceremonies. Taxpayer money is going toward employing someone to stand guard at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetary, so money paying for an inauguration doesn't seem so absurd.

Although if DC's economic situtation is particularly bad, it would be nice if they drew the money from federal funds, since it is a federal event.

There's a big difference between a party for a President who already had one four years ago and Department of Education. Of course, you want our youth to become more and more like the FFXIers?

The majority of the DC population is a bunch of government jobbed leeches anyways, I think they can pitch in a little to ride the gravy train..

OOPS, did I say that out loud?

Wait! Let me see if I've got this right:

In previous administrations, the President simply appropirated some amount of money to pay for security for the inauguration.

But this year, the Bush administration gave DC a bunch of money for Homeland Security. Presumably a large amount to that one city then any other region of the same size (cause there's all those government people to protect and it's a pretty obvious target for terrorists, right?).

And now, those eeevil Bush administration people want to have the cost for security for the inauguration taken out of that Homeland Security budget.

Um. It's federal money anyway, right? Aren't we really quibbling over whether Peter robbed from Paul or the other way around? Where did they budget for inaugurations previously? Where did that money come from before? Doesn't "Homeland Security" cover things like security?

It just sounds to me like in previous years there was no specific budget for those specific security issues (or it was in like a treasury/SS budget), and now that budget is under Homeland Security (cause it's a consolidation of several other budgets, right?). Dunno. Just sounds like someone's trying to make this sound like a lot more then it really is.

Ultimately, it's not the taxpayers of DC that are footing the bill locally. It's the taxpayers around the country (Homeland Security budget is federal, right?), just as we've always footed the bill. The route the money took to get from our paychecks to the end point of paying for security for the inauguration has changed is all.

Lady-

Give me the name of a single student that has been educated by the Department of Education.

Oh...and did you object to Clinton's second Inagural? Reagan's? Nixon's?

God, no, I wouldn't want our kiddies to become FFXI-ers. Trouble is, their Government schools are failing them miserably while at the same time the teacher's unions are seeking to block any and all competitive practices from alternative education systems and to prevent any sort of teacher accountability that allows administrators to get rid of incompetant teachers. Barring a total revamping of the system, we might soon be looking up to FFXI-ers as being intellectual giants.

Dan-

From what I've read, it's Homeland Security funds that are being used to boost security. Although there are those misguided few that would disagree, protecting the duly elected President during his inaguration is a legitimate use of Homeland Security funds.

gbaji-

Welcome to the wonderful world of Double Standards. One very high standard for Republicans and one very low standard for Democrats. They'll wring their hands and cry that public money is being used to conduct an Inaugural (during a time of war I point out) if it's a Republican but, as usual, if it were Kerry there'd be not the slightest murmur of protest from them.

Nothing in that post counters what I said Dan.

The US government gave DC $15M dollars to fund security as part of the Homeland Security budget (that qualifies as a "bunch of money", right?). The only difference is that DC seems to think that this money should be in addition to that for security for the inaugural party and the US government believe that security is part of that budget.

What's really interesting is that this isn't a "new" issue. Obviously, if DC "sought unsuccesffuly" to get an extra $10M to "reimburse" them for inaugural security expenses, then they already fought this battle. A year ago... And lost.

So now today there is this big "breaking story" about how DC will have to pay that 10M. Um... They already knew that a year ago. It was budgeted that way a year ago. It really sounds to me more like someone's pet budgeting project didn't get approved, and so he's pushing the story to the Washington Post as sour grapes. Obviously, the DC was expected to cover the inaugural security with the 15M they got from the Homeland Security budget. Otherwise, this wouldn't have been fought over a year ago. It's not like they woke up today and went: "OMG! You're not going to pay us back for the cost of security?!". The story is just written to make it look that way is all.


It's also interesting how they use slightly different phrases in that last paragraph. DC was unable to boost their Security budget by 10M, but NY and Boston were able to "obtain" 50M each for the conventions.

Note that they don't say that NY and Boston were able to "boost" their Homeland Security budgets for those events by 50M each. Just that they were able to "obtain" it. Well, guess what? DC "obtained" 15M for security through the Homeland Security budget. That's how much they were budgeted for. Presumably NY and Boston were "budgeted" for 50M for their security needs as well. I suppose they could have asked for 60M, and they'd have been denied 10M just like DC was. But that's not what the article says. It specifically compares two different things. How much one wanted to boost their allocation by (unsuccessfully), and how much another got period. There's nothing in that paragraph that says that NY and Boston got all the money they requested, but again, the writer worded it in a way that makes it look that way.


You really have to read articles like this carefully. He didn't use those different terms accidentally. This story has a specific purpose and an agenda.

So, a year ago, the Bushies knew they'd win the election and have an inauguration and need 10 Mil for security, so they gave DC 15 Mil, planning to take 10 Mil back for the security? That about it?
Very generous, 5 Mil for homeland security in DC, then.

Well, honestly, as much as I dislike Bush, I'm not seeing a huge problem with this. Yes, the precedent has been set that the ceremony is paid for privately. However, precedent is not a rule.

Not only that, but the election of our nation's new leader (love him or hate him) is going to bring out all kinds of people. Good people, and bad people. The increased security presence in the city was to protect the welfare of the DC residents. Yes, it sucks that it's not being reimbursed. But they were the ones getting the protection. You can't have the streets flooded with cops for free, because the cops have families to feed and doughnuts to buy.

The option has always been there, just because a president hasn't chosen to use it doesn't make it wrong. It might not be "cool" or win him a popularity contest, but if you can't stand it, then live somewhere where the increased security presence isn't needed at the time of inauguration... like, oh, say, Wisconsin.

See that 'annual' in there? DC is allocated $15M annuallyto help pay for the city's security. Fearing this exact situation, the city sought an extra $10M to cover the extra costs associated with the inauguration. Congress decided not to give it to them.

As for specifically blaming Bush, I never got that impression. The title of the article itself is "U.S. Tells D.C. to Pay Inaugural Expenses", not "Bush Tells..." It's just another example of how DC's getting screwed over - this IS the Washington Post.

Yeah. I saw the "annual" bit in there. What's your point?

How about this one? How much did they get from the Homeland Security budget in 2001 (the last year we had an inauguration)? Oh yeah! Nothing... That was paid out of a different budget. See. This year, they were budgeted the 10M they need for the inauguration security *plus* 5M more then they *never* got before.

How are they getting screwed again?

I'd also be curius where the 10M figure came from. Is that what it's actually costing purely for the inauguration security? Or is that the extra amount that DC wanted to get (and which presumably some budget process determined they didn't actually need)?

In either case, I'm not sure why this is news (not legitimate news anyway). I'm sure there are hundreds of cities and states around the country that don't get all the money they ask for budgeted to them every single year. The only reason this is being brought up is because it can be somewhat weakly tied to Bush, and used to take a jab at him and his administration, even though they personally had *nothing* to do with it.



Odd. You clicked on a link titled "Cheap-*** President" and you never got the impression anyone was blaming Bush? Presumably the OP read the article and came to the conclusion that Bush was "cheap-***" as a result.

I'm always amused when someone reads an article and comes to a conclusion as a result, then I argue that the facts don't support that conclusion, and someone inevitably throws out the "well, the article didn't actually say that" line of defense. Um.. Duh! Of course they didn't say that, becuase it's not true. That's my whole point. This type of article is written very specifically to write facts in such a way as to get the typical reader to come to a conclusion, even though those facts don't support it. That's why it's crappy journalism.

You can argue whether they intended to do that or not, but the fact is that at least one person read the article and concluded that Bush was being cheap as a result. That's absolutely irrefutable. Thus, the article was either deliberately written to trick readers into arriving at that or a similar conclusion, or it was written so poorly that some readers would come to such an absolutely wrong conclusion as a result. Either one is bad. Why doesn't anyone seem to get this, even when it's right in front of them?

Edited, Thu Jan 13 05:58:30 2005 by gbaji