A few months ago, we wrote a post about Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern and his silly criticism of Governor John Kasich’s use of the state airplane.
Never missing an opportunity to put his diarrhea of the mouth on display, get a load of what Redfern says about the two planes owned by the state for its governors to use to travel around Ohio: The governor should stop using the planes to travel around Ohio.
“I think we ought to sell the damn planes,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said. “The governor loves privatization. He ought to drive down to Port Columbus Airport and fly coach like the rest of us.”
Ridiculous. The plane is there for the governor to do his job. Ohio is a large state. No matter who the governor is or what party they belong to, that’s exactly what the planes are there for. For the governor to use in pursuit of the state’s business.
…
Not only is it the stupid political hackery that we’re used to from Redfern, it would actually cost the state more money if we followed his suggestion.
So it cost $2200 to fly the governor and a number of his staff to Cleveland. The DDN piece mentions that for this particual trip, the group was large enough that they used two planes. Since each plane can carry 10 passengers, lets conservatively assume that there were 10 people in the group total.
That comes out to $220 per person, round trip. That’s a bargain, folks. Go do a search on a round trip commercial flight from Columbus to, er…Cleveland. They start at $800.
Well, since Chris Redfern is so concerned about how much taxpayers are spending on air travel, he might want to check in on what President Obama’s campaign stops to Ohio are costing us all. Last year he made a 10 minute speech in Columbus. How much did it cost?
The trip Columbus probably cost taxpayers between $500,000 and $1 million.
Air Force One alone bills out at $100,000 per hour, and the round trip is nearly two hours. Adding to the cost are military aircraft to carry limos and secret service vehicles, Marine One on standby, Secret Service, local police and other factors.
Was Obama here to help Ohio, or to conduct business for the nation? No. He was here to campaign for then-governor Ted Strickland, and to defend his own failed stimulus plan.
Just two weeks ago, Obama was in Ohio again. This time his speech was a full 17 minutes. Using the same standards as above, we paid another $750,000 minimum for Obama’s campaign stop.
And of course, Obama is here again today. Everyone knows how important Ohio has become in the electoral college mathematics, and Obama is already campaigning for his reelection in Ohio at full tilt. Another million dollars of tax money spent by Obama.
Making it worse, Obama is going to be speaking at a bridge over the Ohio River. He says his new stimulus jobs bill will renovate the bridge and provide much needed jobs to jump start the economy. You know, what his original stimulus bill was supposed to do, and didn’t. But the facts are, that work on the bridge can’t be started for at least four years from now. That’s quite a different story than Obama has been telling us. He has been claiming that his “jobs bill” would “get the economy moving now.”
And even if you believed him about the bridge project being part of his jobs plan, why is he visiting Ohio? The bridge is owned by Kentucky!
Nope, no politics involved here! None whatsoever!
So, lets compare. As of August, WKYC did an “investigation” that shows that total cost of use of Ohio’s state planes, was $64,000.
$64,000 for 8 months worth of travel to conduct state business beneficial to Ohio.
versus…
At least $1.5 million for the President to conduct his reelection campaign in Ohio for a couple of minutes-long speeches, just in September alone.
I’m sure we’ll being seeing a statement from Redfern condemning the President’s wasteful travel spending hit the wires any minute now. Right, Chairman? We’re waiting! Someone let me know if he responds to me on Twitter. Like the grownup that he is, he blocks hundreds of people from following him if they aren’t Democrats, including yours truly.
One last note. Why isn’t Sherrod Brown with the President? He wasn’t with him at his last Ohio trip either. Sherrod Brown has already gone on record supporting the new stimulus bill “jobs act”. Why wouldn’t he want to be with the president to support it? Hmmm…
