Filed under: Dr. Boyce Money, News
The government must also pay the Secret Service for protection and overtime for local police. These are just a few of the costs that come with protecting the world's most powerful human being.
Some of the cost estimates presented by the newspaper include the early trip to Hawaii for Mrs. Obama (who flew out before the president), at $63,000. There is President Obama's round trip, estimated to cost $1 million. Local police need an extra quarter million for overtime costs and there is the $134,000 estimated cost of housing the president's staff.
While $1.4 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the multi-trillion dollar economic problems of our nation, there are surely going to be critics who give the president a hard time for how much he spends on his vacation. The good thing for President Obama, however, is that the Republicans can't give him too much trouble in light of the fact that they worked overtime to obtain multi-billion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy this past month. After pulling a stunt for the rich at the expense of the working class of America, the Republicans' ability to provide credible commentary about the economic state of our nation has been sorely diminished.
I'm sure President Obama is happy to be on vacation. He's spending time with his family and now has the opportunity to get away from all the stress factors in Washington. Part of me wonders if he ever regrets taking this job. Only a few times in American history has it been this difficult to be President of the United States (the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II might be examples). But one thing's for sure: no president has ever had to deal with the Herculean task of being the first black man in the Oval Office. In a country with a racist history like America, that is a challenge like no other.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.