Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern |
President Obama’s trip to Ohio today reminded us of a post from months ago about government plane use by our elected officials. Back in April we told you about the lame attack on Governor Kasich that was made by Ohio Democratic Party Chairman (and wannabe pirate) Chris Redfern. He was upset that Kasich was using the plane to conduct state business more than his predecessor Ted Strickland did, and actually said we should just sell the planes and pay to fly the governor and his staff around on commercial airlines.
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.”
We then pointed out that Redfern’s idiotic suggestion would actually cost taxpayers’ more money.
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. And for all the traveling that a governor has to do, Redfern would have him sitting around in commercial airports for hours, several times a month? Yeah, that’s an efficient use of the governor’s time, not to mention his staff!
A few months later, we compared the cost of Kasich’s plane trips to the cost of President Obama’s. While the most expensive trip taken by the governor came to $2200, a trip that President Downgrade made to Ohio was a bit higher.
The trip to 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.
Fast forward another few months, and Ohio’s moonbat liberals, obsessed with criticizing any and all things Kasich, are still talking about the state plane. From just a couple of weeks ago:
Janetta King, currently president and chief executive officer for the liberal policy group Innovation Ohio, and former deputy chief of staff for Strickland, criticized Kasich and Taylor for their plane use.
“Any time that an elected official is using taxpayer money to travel, I think the bar needs to be very high when making those decisions about using the state plane, which is more expensive than traveling by vehicle,” King said.
Hey Janetta, today President Obama spent around a million dollars on a completely unnecessary and political trip to northeast Ohio to make an announcement of an unconstitutional power grab. It did nothing for Ohio but clog traffic and use local resources.
In what world does that million dollar trip clear your “very high bar” but Governor Kasich’s $1000 trips spent doing Ohio’s business do not?
Folks like Janetta King, Chris Redfern and the Plunderpals have a serious case of KDS. Kasich Derangement Syndrome.