Wow, An Inauguration Is Expensive And Stuff - Page 2
And then there is the party bill.
"We have a budget of roughly $45 million, maybe a little bit more," said Linda Douglass, spokeswoman for the inaugural committee.
That's more than the $42.3 million in private funds spent by President Bush's committee in 2005 or the $33 million spent for Bill Clinton's first inaugural in 1993.
Before anyone jumps on me about how I'm an Obama-hater, nope...the man is going to be President and I respect that. But anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows that I'd be irritated if that amount of dough was spent on anyone being inaugurated. I mean, come on. I'm not against holding a celebration and having fun after such a grueling campaign, and any President needs a strong security detail, and people do need porta-johns, but it does make me question...would these rich donors be willing to donate that much money to homeless shelters and food banks and hospitals? Or are those places not conducive to showing off one's designer gown and jewels and tux?
Even taking into consideration that $170M is probably an inaccurate number, even taking off the 1 makes it an obscene amount. If these people really want change they can believe in, maybe they should start spreading the money in a more charitable direction.
In the meantime, the American voters (you know, the ones who could most benefit from donations) are losing their jobs and can't afford to put food on the table. What recession?
[btw, disclaimer: These are my opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of anyone else at GL...so don't blame Dawn ;) ]
hattip to Deceiver from whom I shamelessly swiped the gist of the post
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