Bush declares a 'state of emergency' as Barack spends £110m on Party

[Rebel]

Bush declares a 'state of emergency' in Washington as cost of Obama's swearing-in ceremony soars to £110m (160.6M USD)

By Paul Thompson
Last updated at 5:28 PM on 14th January 2009

'State of emergency': Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to Obama's £100m inauguration

Barack Obama's inauguration is set to cost more than £100m making it the most expensive swearing-in ceremony in US history.

The President-elect will take less than a minute to recite the oath of office in front of an estimated two million people in the US capital next week.

But by the time the final dance has been held at one of the many inaugural balls the costs for the day will be a staggering £110m.

The cost was revealed as Mr Obama scrambled to answer questions about the nomination of Treasury Secretary pick Timothy Geithner.

Geithner - the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank whose selection by Obama as Treasury chief in November - is facing questions about an 'illegal' housekeeper whose work papers lapsed while she was employed by his family, and about several years when Geithner did not pay £35,000 of Social Security and Medicare taxes for himself. ---MORE---

Narcissistic **** has already spent almost 1.2 billion dollars since he's started running combining this and his campaign. ....and that's JUST on himself. Cost of campaign

[NHSparky]

I think I'll go dredge up some DU or Kos threads where they bitch and moan about how much got spent on Bush's inaguration.

[TheSarge]

I think I'll go dredge up some DU or Kos threads where they bitch and moan about how much got spent on Bush's inaguration.

Here...let me hlep you with that...from AP:

To get a real feel for the contrast, here’s an excerpt of Lester’s January 13, 2005 piece (as recounted in the MRC’s CyberAlert), starting with a lede designed to rain all over Bush’s parade and including the suggestion from two liberal Democrats that Bush eat cold chicken salad and pound cake instead:


President Bush’s second inauguration will cost tens of millions of dollars — $40 million alone in private donations for the balls, parade and other invitation-only parties. With that kind of money, what could you buy?

â–  200 armored Humvees with the best armor for troops in Iraq.

â–  Vaccinations and preventive health care for 22 million children in regions devastated by the tsunami.

■ A down payment on the nation’s deficit, which hit a record-breaking $412 billion last year....

The questions have come from Bush supporters and opponents: Do we need to spend this money on what seems so extravagant?

New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, suggested inaugural parties should be scaled back, citing as a precedent Roosevelt's inauguration during World War II.

"President Roosevelt held his 1945 inaugural at the White House, making a short speech and serving guests cold chicken salad and plain pound cake," according to a letter from Weiner and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. "During World War I, President Wilson did not have any parties at his 1917 inaugural, saying that such festivities would be undignified."...

Billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks, voted for Bush -- twice. Cuban knows a thing or two about big spending, once starring in ABC's reality TV show, "The Benefactor," in which 16 contenders tried to pass his test for success and win $1 million.

"As a country, we face huge deficits. We face a declining economy. We have service people dying. We face responsibilities to help those suffering from the...devastation of the tsunamis," he wrote on his blog, a Web journal.

Cuban challenged Bush to set an example: "Start by canceling your inauguration parties and festivities."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2009/01/14/ap-slammed-bush-s-extravagant-inaugural-05-now-it-s-spend-baby-spend


Fast forward 4 years and the AP is (surprise) singing a different tune:

“For inaugural balls, go for glitz, forget economy,” a Tuesday AP headline advised. The article by reporter Laurie Kellman argued for extravagance, starting with the lede:

So you're attending an inaugural ball saluting the historic election of Barack Obama in the worst economic climate in three generations. Can you get away with glitzing it up and still be appropriate, not to mention comfortable and financially viable?

To quote the man of the hour: Yes, you can. Veteran ballgoers say you should. And fashionistas insist that you must.

"This is a time to celebrate. This is a great moment. Do not dress down. Do not wear the Washington uniform," said Tim Gunn, a native Washingtonian and Chief Creative Officer at Liz Claiborne, Inc.

"Just because the economy is in a downturn, it doesn't mean that style is going to be in a downturn," agreed Ken Downing, fashion director for Neiman Marcus.

And if anyone does raise an eyebrow at those sequins, remind them that optimism is good for times like these. "Just say you're doing it to help the economy," chuckled good manners guru Letitia Baldridge.

[jinxmchue]

Of course the liberals won't complain despite the Obamessiah's inaugural costing 4 times President Bush's in 2005.

**** you, libtards.

[Carl]

Did anyone have any doubt that this would happen and what the reaction would be?

[USA4ME]

I think I'll go dredge up some DU or Kos threads where they bitch and moan about how much got spent on Bush's inaguration.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/01/20/media_on_inauguration

.

[Chris]

For the media, simply reporting on the cost of the inauguration proved to be a challenge. Most major outlets stuck to the lower, albeit still unprecedented, figure of $40 million, which the Presidential Inaugural Committee said it hopes to raise from private donors. But a more accurate figure may be $50 million. That's the amount cited by the Washington Times (which is plugged in to GOP circles). But even that number doesn't take into account the nearly $20 million that's being spent for security, putting the real cost at closer to $70 million, instead of the media's preferred $40 million.

  Dumbasses.

[djones520]

Something that story about Bush's inaug forgot to point out.  Only 3 million of that 50 million spent on the 2005 Inauguration was tax payers money.

Anyone care to take a guess how much of our money Obama is using?  Last I heard it was more then 10 times the 2005 cost...

[diesel driver]

For a guy with the nickname of "Zero", he sure is costing a lot of dough....

[Rebel]

For a guy with the nickname of "Zero", he sure is costing a lot of dough....

Brock's plan for recovery, "We're gonna party out way out of the recession!".

[Hawkgirl]

And we are picking up the tab! 

[Jim]

For a guy with the nickname of "Zero", he sure is costing a lot of dough....

oh this is just the molecule at the very tip of the "costing a lot dough" iceberg

[Full-Auto]

Don't worry about it!  The Messiah will just print some more money.  Let's see.. the national deficit is... was 10 trillion... Bush bumped that to 17 trillion... the Messiah wants to double that yet again... so what's another couple million?

By the way, what comes after a trillion? 

[rich_t]

By the way, what comes after a trillion?

More zeros.

[Hawkgirl]

a quadrillian.

[Rebel]

A Brazilian.