Presidential Perks Gone Royal Read online

  As de Tocqueville warned, an incumbent president today has his initial four years to earn the loyalty of his supporters and the three million civil servants who consider him their boss. An incumbent president has four years to appease groups that might otherwise prefer his opponent, since he can spearhead federal bailout funds for financial institutions, banks, and manufacturers. He can appeal to and solidify support from citizens whose priority interests are healthcare, employment, defense, environment or many other specific concerns.

  If the national committee of a president’s political party has deposited $25,000 and advances payments for costs of events it sponsors in the White House, the president can entertain political activists and campaign contributing groups in the mansion. With political assists of this magnitude and in this ultimate setting, it is easy to see how a candidate for re-election to the presidency can assemble a billion-dollar campaign chest.

  With Air Force One, we taxpayers have provided the sitting president with the perfect campaign tool, with the ability to fly him anywhere in a very short window of time and in the ultimate of airborne luxury. Aboard either of the ones, the president must have to remind himself he is not in the oval office. Airborne, he has every advantage, the most current of campaign information, the latest news about the community and audience to which he soon will land, heroically, regally. And his campaign committee will be asked to reimburse his voters only pennies of what the trip will cost them. No wonder, since delivery of the new ones, that our presidents have chosen to spend a very sizeable part of their lives in the air.

  With the ones at his disposal, it is equally convenient and efficient for the president to be in the air as on the ground. The specific capacity they afford the president—the ability to be practically anywhere with minimal discomfort or inconvenience—has made these airplanes the best of the campaign assists that a sitting president enjoys. With these planes, presidents can dash a little politics into the recipe of every scheduled affair of state meeting or event. And of course every president is well aware of this capacity for “backdoor campaigning” well before the primaries begin.

  The new ones have been used far more often for domestic flights than the airplanes of previous presidents. They have made it practical for presidents to “drop in on” their fellow citizens anywhere, anytime—to calculated effect. Ethnic groups settle in concentrated communities with multiple generations of their families and friends, so the ever-campaigning president can reach out to a great number of voters by making symbolic flights to select locations.

  Without changing pace, a president running for re-election can continue to use the power of his office to appease the hopes and cater to the wishes of group after group and segment after segment of the country’s fractious, varied population, knowing full well that the sum of their parts is the national majority. Unless he is on a foreign trip, the president and the ones are touching down several times each week somewhere in America, often with little serious reason to do so, other than the fact that the president has his eye on his next election.

  An incumbent president becomes the personification of government largesse when he grants federal relief to regions stricken by floods or hurricanes or tornadoes or blizzards. Is the swollen Mississippi out of control? Are there brush fires in Arizona or California? Is the Midwest beset by tornados? Are Northeast blizzards stranding people on mountaintops? Such situations rain down from heaven like veritable manna for a sitting president seeking re-election.

  A president also can use Air Force One for onsite military and federal inspections, all the while posing for photos that evidence his apparently deep concern for this or that issue. A president’s obscene actions are covered fully by the press. The publicity spotlights him and puts his personal fingerprint on the federal dollars allocated to relief measures. It is as if he, himself, is delivering the government gold. The benefits his office affords him in his efforts to get himself re-elected cannot be overstated.

  A president running for re-election can always find an issue to show his administration’s importance to any audience. When speaking to a largely African-American audience, for example, President Obama alluded to the $1.2 billion government monies awarded black farmers as bringing us “closer to the ideals of freedom and equality that this country was founded on.”

  A president campaigning for re-election also can select events for his calculated appearance in locations where opinion polls show him lagging, or where endorsement was withheld in his previous election. Every state, county and township produces an occasional hero or heroine, milestone, or event that a sitting president can use as his reason for a regal visitation. What city’s Chamber of Commerce would not welcome Air Force One stopping by, with the commander in chief on board, eager to attend the town’s annual local event? Moreover, any such appearance automatically gets a nod from the nationwide media, increasing the perception of the president as a hometown kind of fellow.

  But the ethics violations that this usage of the Presidential Fleet represents are hugely significant. As taxpayers, we have a right to quarrel with the costs of Air Force One being used for campaign purposes. And our arguments are powerful, as there are significant ethics questions about this usage of the Presidential Fleet.

  Well into his campaign for the 2012 Republican nomination, Texas Governor Rick Perry was charged with a campaign ethics violation. The Federal election Commission found that his campaign committee had failed to report the total cost of the usage of an airplane donated by a supporter. Instead of the total cost, Perry’s campaign committee had declared only the cost of the seats used for political purposes. Easy to see how they might conclude that the laws in this democracy apply equally to all its citizens. They were simply using the same standard with which a president is permitted to use the entire fleet of airplanes led by Air Force One. An incumbent president can fly that entire armada to his campaign destination, at a cost to taxpayers of millions of dollars, and merely reimburse government for the price of a first-class commercial ticket for each person deemed aboard “for political purposes.”

  In the early days, when presidents campaigned in official airplanes, the Democratic or Republican National Committees reimbursed the government for the cost of fuel. But in later administrations, rising fuel costs and the thirsty appetites of bigger jet engines made that too pricey for the seated president. With a seated president holding royal sway over the rules of his own expenditures, a new formula was adopted.

  Today, when one is scheduled for political use, a manifest is prepared detailing who will be aboard. There are many individuals, like the presidential physician, his valet, and his senior aides, who are expected to travel with the commander in chief, whether or not the purpose of the trip is political. Others who may be along on the trip for political purposes—and this includes the president himself—are deemed political passengers on this manifest. The total number of “political” passengers then is multiplied by the cost of a single first-class ticket to the destination and return, determined by the average cost of such a ticket aboard a commercial jet of the same size. The federal government is reimbursed for that amount—and only for that amount.

  Here is a hypothetical scenario that will help to put this arrangement in readily understandable terms. The price of a first-class round-trip ticket from Washington, D. C. to Honolulu is $5,500. If you assume that nine people plus the president are traveling aboard Air Force One for political purposes on a trip to Honolulu, the president’s re-election campaign fund would have to reimburse the government $55,000. At the Air Force One operating cost of $181,757 per hour— as reaffirmed by a member of the Air Force—the 18-hour round trip would cost the taxpayers some $3,268,000.

  We know these figures seem impossible, but consider the fact that the Defense Department budget includes $200 million annually just for Air Force One operations. We have to assume that cost includes the fuel, upkeep, maintenance and replacement parts for both one and the Wannabe that tags along.

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bsp; And, since Air Force One never leaves the ground alone, good accounting also would include the costs of the support airplanes which carry the vehicles and ground support materials and Marine One for use on landing. It properly should include the costs of military air cover to give protection during the flight and the costs of those crews. It also has to cover hanger costs and the dozens of ground-based officers and enlisted personnel and civilians who plan, plot and provision in preparation every time Air Force One is used.

  Yes, Air Force One makes a powerful statement, but every single time it is used it also socks a very hefty whopping to the taxpayers. In our hypothetical example (which not infrequently becomes reality) the taxpayers would cover nearly $3,268,000 for use of government equipment (for which it previously had paid for its purchase) yet it would cost the president’s re-election committee only $55,000. That’s something like a mere .017 percent (less than two one hundredths of one percent) of the total actual cost of operation!

  And, most often, the White House finds some official reason for the President’s visit to the city hosting the political event, his campaign committee contributes nothing, and the taxpayers are stuck with the total of the enormous costs of his political use of Air Force One and its accompanying air armada.

  No reasonable citizen would suggest a president campaigning for re-election should be denied the comforts and perks of Air Force One. Of course, the president must have One’s security. Of course, the president must have instant access to other world leaders and American forces abroad through the Ones’ superb communications’ technology. While a candidate for re-election, he remains the president of the United States and we do want him to have the comforts of the Ones.

  However, none of the above paragraph argues against the equity of assessing a more fair price for the ones’ use in political campaigns. For a campaign committee to pay only the equivalent of the price of a first-class ticket by commercial air would be ludicrous under any circumstances. And it is really laughable when a campaign committee boasts it has a billion dollar war chest.

  Let’s imagine a typical situation in which the incumbent president and the contending challenger both undertake the same campaign trip. Compare the travel costs of the sitting president with those of a competitor for his office when each of them takes the same trip to a destination city. Let’s say, for example, that the flight is from Washington, D.C. to the city of New Orleans. Renting a medium-size jet aircraft from Washington to New Orleans will cost the campaign of the opposing candidate around $45,000. The trip would take two hours or more of valuable campaign time.

  In contrast, if the president who is running for re-election flies to New Orleans on Air Force One, the flight will take only an hour and forty minutes, thanks to officially-sanctioned clearance and the all important FCC imperatives that Air Force One commands. Assuming the president and ten others are considered on the manifest to be flying aboard Air Force One “for political purposes,” the president’s campaign committee will reimburse the United States government $9,790—the cost of ten average-priced first-class tickets from Washington, DC to New Orleans.

  To recap, that hypothetical trip would cost the challenger’s campaign committee $45,000, while the trip on Air Force One would only cost the president’s re-election campaign $9,790—while costing the taxpayers $271,500. When the president is campaigning using one of the two Air Force Ones, the incidental costs, such as maintenance and supplies and spare parts of those aircraft, are covered by tax dollars as well.

  What about the per diem costs of all those skilled members of the military who fill positions in those handpicked crews—to say nothing of the chefs and the supplies they need in order to cook for the president and his guests? Who pays for the costs of the second Air Force One flying along to be available in case its brother plane has problems? What about the maintenance and costs of the airplanes and crews that go along to accompany the presidential limousine or Marine One for ground transportation at his destination, plus the extra costs of additional security?

  Staggering as these are, the costs don’t stop there. Before the president even sets foot out of Washington, D. C., an advance team precedes him to his destination. That means the added costs of government airplanes or, at the very least, the price of tickets on commercial airlines. It means salaries and hotel expenses for the dozens who make up the advance party there to scout out good camera angles for the American flag, ensure that the sound system is adequate, place the presidential seal on the podium and set up the teleprompters, line up the locals who will shake the president’s hand, determine who stands where, and take care of a hundred other details of trifling importance, all meticulously scrutinized. Who pays for all these added costs?

  Who pays for research assistants to detail the demography of the potential presidential audience, in order to prioritize the points he will make in his local “homespun” speech? Who pays the speechwriters who have composed the president’s political comments? And what about the salaries and expenses of those who commit his views to the teleprompter, and the tech crew who travel along to handle the equipment? And what about the extra costs of salaries and transportation of security personnel? Then there is the expense of the president’s “ground transportation” via helicopter to and from Air Force One.

  In late January, 2012, President Obama took Air Force One (along with the Wannabe and supporting aircraft) to New York City to attend a fundraiser hosted by movie producer Spike Lee. Later, Lee posted this commentary on Twitter, “A great night. I heard we raised 1.6 million dollars from the dinner tonight…Ya-Dig.”

  What the taxpayers may “dig” is that, with the costs of the ones and the supporting aircraft, plus the military manpower and the extra Secret Service protection, and the costs to New York State and New York City for extra patrolmen and policemen and added fire details, that presidential fundraiser cost taxpayers a great deal more than the amount pocketed by the Obama campaign. We taxpayers would have been way ahead monetarily had we given the Obama campaign committee the 1.6 million dollars and asked President Obama to stay at home in the safety of the White House.

  There is another scenario to consider: What if a president is visiting a city to push the candidacy of a congressman or senator or governor—a campaigning individual whose political views you as a taxpayer don’t particularly support? Sorry to tell you, but those costs are still billed to you, a further indication of just how powerful a president is, not just for himself but also for his whole party, thanks to the perks that have been accorded him in office. Or perhaps a president is using one of the taxpayers’ $325-million planes and its pilots and crew and the necessary follow-up $325-million plane with its pilots and crew, and the follow-up planes for transport of vehicles and supplies, and the follow-up Marine One, and its own “Little Wannabe,” in his own campaign for re-election? Let’s say you support another candidate for president—should you still have to pay for the electioneering efforts of the incumbent?

  It might be going too far to suggest that our presidents’ campaign committees should be asked to pay all the expenses of a president’s re-election. But it can certainly be argued that those costs are for the benefit of the president’s campaigns—for his own reelection!—after which he will continue to benefit from all the taxpayer-paid indulgences of the office, as detailed in these pages.

  As matters stand, it is you and I who pay for so much of a sitting president’s re-election campaign. And not since Franklin Pierce ran for office in 1852 has an elected president failed to receive his party’s nomination for a second term. Sitting presidents, in addition to their many powers of incumbency, also have that biggest of advantages—total freedom from the costs, the petty squabbles, the fundraising challenges, and the drains upon the personal energy that form the difficulties faced by the primary contestant who opposes the incumbent for our nation’s preeminent position.

  The campaigns of challengers with any dreams of success must start more than a year before their part
y’s nominating convention. The president’s campaign, by contrast, can laze along in terms of visibility—even while work is going on furiously behind the scenes right up to his party’s pro forma nomination, which usually comes about ninety days before the election. Prior to that event, a president’s comfortable executive lifestyle remains unchanged, even though he is heavily in re-election mode and his everyday activities are increasingly formed by the concerns of getting re-elected.

  Unlike the challenger, a seated president can be assured that every move and every appearance he makes outside the oval office or the White House will be covered by the press. Stop in on a police training center in Chicago? Visit a day care facility in Kentucky or a business class in Arizona? The occasion does not have to be truly newsworthy; anytime the president is within camera range, it’s news—usually, national news!

  In contrast, the non-presidential candidate, or his campaign committee, must hire staffs and consultants and media experts and pollsters and researchers and speechwriters, while also paying for hotel rooms and giant buses and expensive chartered jet aircraft, not to mention such minor details as placards and bunting, national and local print and broadcast advertising, and the many other costs required by a modern campaign. Also, a non-presidential candidate’s campaign advisors compete with local politicians to push and pull him in opposing directions.