Lets paint the town red, and charge it to the taxpayer

This week President Obama took the First Lady out on a date. They went to dinner and then to a Broadway show. At face value it seemed like an innocuous evening that continued to let the President live outside the bubble of the white house. There is one tiny detail, however, that made these events offensive, the First Couple went on this date in New York City.
The reason why this is such a big deal stems from the President’s own call for fiscal responsibility. Obama could just as easily accomplished the same goal while staying in DC. He could have flown Dan Barber down from New York, and Mr. Barber could have prepared a special “Blue Hill” meal in the White House with fresh ingredients trucked down from the Blue Hill farm in upstate New York. The Obama’s could have then gone to see a show at the Kennedy Center for the Arts, which is a short drive from their residence. Instead Obama fired up Air Force 1 and flew to New York. Now to his credit he did fly a smaller version of Air Force 1 to save on fuel. At least that is what the White House wanted you to believe. The truth is that The President ended up having to fly three of these smaller planes to accommodate staff and the press. Are three small planes cheaper, and better for the environment than one big plane?
Beyond the direct cost of this venture to the taxpayer (the complete trip cost around $200,000) he burdened New Yorkers further by blocking traffic in downtown Manhattan for the better part of Saturday night. The traffic is already bad on the weekends, but imagine gridlock that makes Lagos, Nigeria seem like a Nascar race. Commentators that condone the trip say that President Bush used to take trips to Texas all the time while he was President and that leisure travel is an accommodation granted to the Commander in Chief. I respond to that analysis by saying that no President, no matter the party, should be able to fly leisurely on the taxpayer’s dime. If the Obama’s were already coming to New York on official business then the trip would have been justified. Beyond official trips Obama has no business coming to New York City unless he is covering the expenses with his own hard earned book deal money. I would go as far as to say that this trip with Michele constitutes a junket. The same type of junket Obama preached against while trying to scold Wall Street. That scolding has backfired twice now. First it caused Las Vegas to loose hundreds of millions of tax revenue dollars from hotel/convention cancellations, and second, after this weeks date night, it makes Obama look very hypocritical. The one exception to this “no fly” rule should be standard holidays.