Later this month, Obama will take his pivot-to-jobs act on the road with a bus tour across the Midwest. Since the battleground-state bus excursion sounds suspiciously similar to a campaign event, CNS News asked the White House whether taxpayers or the Obama campaign would be funding the trip.
Take a guess at the answer:
CNSNews.com asked Carney, “Is that a campaign event or a presidential event?”
Carney answered, “Negative. That is an official event.”
CNSNews.com followed, “So it is being funded by taxpayers in battleground states?”
Carney responded, “He’s the president of the United States.”
Another reporter followed up about whether there was a political nature to the trip.
“The air of cynicism is quite thick,” Carney shot back. “The idea that the president of the United States should not venture forth into the country is ridiculous.”
Nobody’s questioning whether Obama should be allowed to travel across the country, but since when does the president of the United States set off on official bus tours that aren’t campaign-related?
Apparently since April, when the Secret Service plunked down $2.2 million for a fleet of armored buses specifically meant to be used by the president during his cross-country campaigning (one of the buses will also be available for use by the Republican nominee). Candidates will not have to reimburse the Secret Service for the use of the vehicles.
Before this, presidential campaigns would typically rent their own buses, and the Secret Service would outfit them with the necessary protection. Not anymore. Last April, Talking Points Memo reported these buses will be used for official presidential business as well:
And they wouldn’t only be used on the campaign trail — the Secret Service said the multipurpose vehicles will be useful whenever a protectee travels into rural areas.
“The reality is that we’re overdue for having this type of protective asset in our fleet,” Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told TPM. “We’ve had protectees in buses since at least 1980. Ronald Reagan, Gov. Reagan, was in a bus during the campaign. It’s overdue because designing our own vehicle really gave us a level of security which we don’t get when we lease a bus.”
It seems likely Obama will use one of these armored buses during his upcoming jobs tour – which raises questions about whether that’s a fair use of the resource. It certainly gives him a benefit over the current Republican candidates, who still have to pay for their own bus tours. However, unlike a regular campaign bus, these won’t display campaign logos because they’re government vehicles (here’s a photo).
But fair campaigning aside, the outrage over Obama wasting taxpayer money is a little overblown, especially if he’s riding in one of the Secret Service buses. According to the TPM article, the buses will be available to the White House for at least the next 10 years, and after that, they’ll be used at the Secret Service training facility. So it sounds like the equipment might have been necessary in the long run anyway.
[...] “battleground-state bus excursion sounds suspiciously similar to a campaign event,” says Alana Goodman at Commentary. Obama has every right to travel around the country, but the president of the United States [...]