Taxpayers pay out the nose for the presidency and family...

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   SparklingJewelposted 11 years ago

   Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.…
   
   Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.
   
   Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”
   
   Read more: http://times247.com/articles/taxpayers- … z27sCj5sks

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2. 73

   Reality Bytesposted 11 years ago

   Taxpayers pay out the nose for every president and their family.  I would be curious to see if the Obama administration spends more than Bush, Clinton?
   
   As to the czars, that cost should be reflected in the cost of government itself, not as part of family expenditures.

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3. 66

   SparklingJewelposted 11 years ago

   ...all of government AND the presidential family are supported by the taxpayer... 
   
   I give a damn about how much is spent...

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      Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You think Romney would spend less?

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      1. 66

         SparklingJewelposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         ...I know Ron Paul would...  but, we will never find out...we're going to have to see the sh**   hit the fan
         
         regardless of who gets the presidency...

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4. 77

   Mighty Momposted 11 years ago

   Robert Keith Gray, hunh?
   Would that possibly be the same Robert Keith Gray the 89-year-old Republican activist and public relations executive?
   
   Well, gosh. Mr. Gray sure has enjoyed some of the perks of Washington himself, hasn't he? Let's see:
   Appointments Secretary to President Dwight Eisenhower and later as Secretary of his cabinet.
   In the 1960s and 1970s, he served as Washington operative for PR giant Hill & Knowlton.
   In 1967, Gray joined the 50-person committee responsible for charting Richard Nixon's path to the White House. 
   
   After serving as deputy director of the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign, in 1980,  Gray became Reagan's first appointment as president when Gray was named co-chairman of Ronald Reagan’s Presidential inauguration.
   
   Oh yes. And he himself has been known to wine and dine on the taxpayers' dime, too:
   
   Gray’s book, 18 Acres Under Glass,  highlighted the demands on both his political and social life as the Secretary of the Cabinet under President Dwight Eisenhower. With tales of the visits with kings and queens, to the extended hours spent with the Chief Executive, the book gives an inner look at the functions and sometimes dysfunctions of Washington.   
   .   
   
   In the 1992 book, The Power House by Susan B. Trento, "tells how Mr. Gray, after unabashedly peddling access for decades, reached the apex of his influence when his friend Ronald Reagan moved into the White House." Trento's book led to a defamation lawsuit by Gray against Trento and St. Martin's Press, in which Gray's claims were dismissed.
   
   How convenient for a book like this to come out NOW. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find any coverage of it except on the right-wing blog sites.

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   1. 66

      SparklingJewelposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      ...gosh, you never know, maybe he has had his "wake-up call" and repents of his past ways and wants to show others what is wrong with the system...as it says in the article, he says many other presidents and family's have used to excess the taxpayers money ( which for me, is the main point)
      
      the tax system is screwed up and I don't like paying for the extravagant lifestyles of others when children are hungry and education is in the pits.,,

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