And, no matter what the reason for the president's trip, there are all sorts of other necessary big expenses anytime he moves around the country: advance teams, cargo planes, armored cars, Secret Service protection, communications and medical staff and more.
Presidents always are quick to stress that they reimburse the government for the costs of their political travel.
That's true, but they do so under rules that still leave taxpayers paying most of the tab.
For political trips benefiting his own campaign, Obama's team repays the government for air travel under a formula that's based on what it would cost to charter a Boeing 737 for a comparable trip, according to the White House. Obama's campaign doesn't have to pay the full cost for a chartered plane, though. It pays a reduced amount based on the number of people aboard Air Force One who were traveling for political reasons. That number excludes Secret Service agents and other support staff who always travel with the president.
Obama's political team also pays for items on the ground like food and lodging that are related to political events. Similar reimbursement rules govern political travel by the vice president and first lady, who fly on smaller, less costly military aircraft.
Despite the high costs to taxpayers, "these White Houses aren't doing anything wrong," says Brendan Doherty, an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval Academy who's written a forthcoming book on presidential campaigning.
If a president had to pay the true costs of his campaign travel, says Doherty, he'd never go anywhere for political purposes.
Obama is the first president to pay for re-election travel under updated rules adopted by the Federal Election Commission in 2009 to implement a lobbying and ethics reform law passed by Congress in 2007.
David Mason, a former FEC chairman, said the new rules -- linking reimbursement amounts to charter air rates rather than commercial airfare -- require the Obama campaign to pay significantly more than it would have under the old rules.
When President George W. Bush was running for re-election in 2004, his campaign and the Republican Party reimbursed the White House more than $1.3 million for "airlift operations," an Associated Press review of federal data shows. Those include itemized expenses for "in-flight services," like food and catering, and the president's helicopter, Marine One.
With the 2012 general election more than six months away, Obama already has exceeded that amount. Since late 2010, a separate Democratic Party "travel offset" account has paid roughly $1.5 million for similar expenses, according to FEC reports. And there can be considerable lag time between when political travel occurs and when reimbursements show up in campaign filings, so more payments are sure to be in the pipeline.
Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/04/26/20120426who-pays-when-president-travels-campaign.html#ixzz21EBQQRwP
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