The cost of presidential travel is considerable and often a closely held secret.
But the latest estimate for the cost of ferrying the presidential entourage: $3.6 million, according to a government estimate that looked at a three-day trip President Barack Obama took in February 2013 to Chicago and Palm Beach, Florida.
The trip was part business: In Chicago, Obama delivered a speech at Hyde Park Academy, discussing economic proposals he had introduced in his State of the Union address. He later flew to Florida for a golf weekend, where his partners included Tiger Woods. He had no public events that weekend.
The Government Accountability Office estimates that the trip cost $3.6 million for the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, specifically the Coast Guard and the Secret Service. The costs included operating expenses for Air Force One and Marine One, the presidential aircraft, along with transportation, lodging and meals for agents, and the costs of military dogs to check for explosives. Certain costs, including salaries and benefits, were excluded.
Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who had asked for the analysis, criticized the spending, saying in a statement that “at a time when the government was tightening its belt to prepare for sequestration, President Obama had such little disregard for the taxpayer that he spent millions of dollars to play golf with Tiger Woods. This arrogance is par for the course for the Obama administration.”
The cost of presidential travel has long proved politically controversial, and other reports have suggested that Obama does not take an extraordinary amount of vacation. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday that he hadn’t seen the report.
The conservative group Judicial Watch, which has sought to keep tabs on the cost of Obama’s trips, last year estimated the overall cost of personal or largely personal travel had reached at least $70.5 million since Obama took office in 2009.
The White House disputed the Judicial Watch analysis at the time, saying that some of the trips the group had cited included work activities.
The Democratic Party picks up travel expenses when Obama attends a campaign event or fundraiser but not when he makes an official trip. But the White House itself decides whether a trip constitutes official business or political travel and makes the determination in secret.
The travel policies of various administrations “generally are not publicly available” but most follow guidelines written by the Reagan White House in 1982, according to a 2012 report by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan legislative agency.
The cost per flying hour for military aircraft is a “significant cost driver” that affects the overall price tag for presidential travel, according to the GAO report. But it says that according to the White House, in order to be able to communicate instantly with the military, the president flies on military aircraft on all trips, regardless of purpose. The use of military aircraft to transport presidents dates to President Franklin Roosevelt, the report says.
Lesley Clark: 202-383-6054, @lesleyclark