Fresh off of their $4 million Hawaiian vacation, Michelle Obama and the first family show no sign of stopping their insane spending spree, courtesy of the American tax payers. Michelle Obama is without precedent in First Lady history in terms of sheer wastefulness. From her oversized, overpaid staff, to her lavish trips to Europe for shopping, she is the exact opposite of what Americans are during a recession. Instead of saving, cutting back, and downsizing, Michelle has chosen to spend as much as she possibly can, as fast as she can. Like a kid in a theme park, trying to ride as many rides as possible before their parents say it’s time to go home, Michelle is desperately trying to spend as much as possible on the taxpayers dime before her husband’s inevitable departure from office.
Michelle’s personal staff is an ideal place to start. The fact that any first lady has a personal staff is absolutely ridiculous, but this first lady has a staff of twenty-four! We, the taxpayers, are paying $1.6 million a year for a someone that has no legislative power, has no role in the running the United States government, and has no actual power greater than that of an average American citizen. Yet somehow, she has a dire need, in these tough economic times, when there are millions of Americans unemployed, for twenty-four, taxpayer paid assistants.
Perhaps Michelle Obama needs such a large personal staff to plan all of her lavish vacations. Michelle has had over sixteen vacations since her husband was inaugurated (not including trips to Camp David (which are substantial). Starting in August 2009, Michelle Obama has had the luxury to go to Martha’s Vineyard, Yellowstone National Park, Hawaii, New York City (with her daughter), Chicago, Mount Desert Island in Maine, Martha’s Vineyard (again), Spain (with her daughter and friends), Panama City Beach in Florida, Vail Colorado (skiing with her daughters), Hawaii (again), South Africa and Botswana (Mother-Daughter trip), Martha’s Vineyard (once again), Hawaii (yes, again), Aspen Colorado (Skiing with her daughters), and Hawaii again (most recently). The cost for all of these trips is astronomical! In 2011 Michelle spent $10 million and 42 days on vacation. Michelle’s 2010 vacation to Spain cost taxpayers over $500,000! I know what you all are saying, she has to go on vacation to make up for all the lost time, those of us who cannot afford to go on vacation are losing. How noble then is our first lady, happily spending money taken from Americans who are scrimping and saving.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of our First Ladies wastefulness has to accredited to her blatant nonchalant attitude about it. During the First Families vacation to Martha’s Vineyard in 2011, Michelle Obama flew out a few hours before her husband left at an extra cost of $100,000! So Michelle’s time is more valuable than 100k, but it’s hard to blame her as she would have had to spend time with Barack.
Remember when Barack said he was going to go through the bills line by line and eliminate wasteful spending?
Author: Logan Jacobs, writer at Modern Politicians – Political blog.
There Are Currenty 9 Comments for this Post
How can you spend $4m on a holiday!?
I do think that it’s ridiculous, why should she get too spend the money that we pay for taxes. Oh wait, shes the first lady so she can do whatever she wants sadly, i think that the need too make a limit on how much a presidents family can spend on things that aren’t necessary. The presidents family spend way too much money on stuff that could be used to make our country a better place, it’s overall just ridiculous as i said before. I’m curious on how much money the Obama family has spent the last couple years of being in office on unnecessary stuff, i can guarantee it will be a ridiculous amount of money.
I find it amusing to say the least. While they combat all the debt in America by cutting public school budget’s and programs, a blind eye is turned to the recreation/entertainment budget for The First Lady. It’s appalling, why does she find the need to go on constant vacations, when she is only hurting her husbands rating. And she is little by little, but here is what I’m thinking. She knows that at the end of these four years, Barack will leave The White House forever, so why not go out with a bang?
She’s the wife of the king of the United States. Doesn’t she deserve all the luxury, due a queen?
While we all budget and scrimp and save she could care less.
I know that the President is given an amount of money as a salary. Does this come off of it? I don’t see why taxpayers should pay for the President’s lavish vacations.
Thank you for commenting,
The US President’s yearly salary is 400,000$ and his pension is 197,000$/year. As you can see, he can’t afford the life he has with his own salary. Hundreds of people are taking care of his safety only, that costs a lot of money. So yeah, taxpayers pay his and his family’s expenses.
Harutyun.
WHAT GREED ,,WHAT WAISTFULNESS,,THAT”S ALL GOVERNMENT IS ANY MORE,,CORRUPT STEALING OF TAX PAYERS MONEY,,AND SCANDALS,,AND LIES,,AND A WORSE LIFE US AS THEY STEAL STEAL STEAL MORE AND MORE
Personally, it really annoys me that she has a dedicated staff deigned to follow her every command. A president should go into office looking to better our country, and right existing problems. It really goes to show how poorly ran our country has became.
Our country has spending problems and this isn’t helping. You would hope that she would at the very least want to buy American fashion products to help our economy!