FURY AS OBAMA USES $180,000-AN-HOUR AIR FORCE ONE TO FLY TO FUNDRAISERS

IS THE TAXPAYER FUNDING PRESIDENT'S RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN? FURY AS OBAMA USES $180,000-AN-HOUR AIR FORCE ONE TO FLY TO FUNDRAISERS

By Toby Harnden

Flight Plan: President Barack Obama disembarks from Marine One on the South Lawn. His use of official vehicles for fundraising trips has caused concern

President Barack Obama has already held more than twice as many re-election fundraising events than President George W. Bush did in his entire 2004 re-election campaign.

According to Mark Knoller of CBS News, unofficial keeper of presidential statistics, Obama has held 124 fundraisers - about one every three days - since he launched his re-election bid last April compared to the 57 Bush held to raise cash for his re-election bid eight years ago

Obama’s frenetic fundraising schedule had prompted the Republican National Committee (RNC) to lodge a formal complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about misuse of taxpayer money.

The Obama campaign dismissed the complaint as a ‘stunt’ and the White House said that it would follow the same rules as previous administrations and refund the appropriate amounts.

According to the Pentagon, the Boeing 747 that normally serves as Air Force One costs $179,750 an hour to operate.

In the complaint, Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, wrote: ‘Throughout his administration, but particularly in recent weeks, President Obama has been passing off campaign travel as 'official events,' thereby allowing taxpayers, rather than his campaign, to pay for his re-election efforts.'

John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, today demanded that Barack Obama ‘pony up and reimburse the Treasury’ for what he said were are campaign trips to battleground states dressed up as presidential travel.

He accused the Obama campaign of manufacturing a phony fight about student loans and then using Air Force One to hold what amounted to re-election rallies in swing states.

‘Frankly, I think this is beneath the dignity of the White House … for the president to make a campaign issue about it and then travel to three battleground states,’ he said.

'This one does not pass the straight-face test. You know it, and I know it. It’s time for the Obama campaign to pony up and reimburse the Treasury.’

He added that ‘the president keeps trying to invent these kind of fake fights because he doesn’t have a record’ and ‘the emperor wears no clothes’.

Priebus said that the Obama campaign ‘has been cheating the American taxpayer by using taxpayer dollars to fund their general election efforts’ and had ‘held more campaign events in three-and-a-half  years than any other president did in their full term’.

'It’s time for the Obama campaign to pony up and reimburse the Treasury.’

John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives

He pointed to Obama's current trip to North Carolina, Colorado, and Iowa, all key battleground states, to discuss extending lower interest rates on student loans as examples of this tax-payer funded campaign travel.

‘One might imagine that if this were genuinely a government event he might have stopped in a non-battleground state like Texas or Vermont,' his complaint said.

Priebus told reporters: ‘This President and Air Force One seem to have a magic magnet that only seem to land in battleground states in this country.’

He added that a trip to Florida a fortnight ago, when an official speech was added to a day’s programme of fundraising, was suspect. ‘This speech was high on class warfare, slogans, and divisive campaign style rhetoric. It was low on substance that would benefit the populace at large.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135914/Michelle-Obamas-Spanish-vacation-cost-taxpayers-500-000.html#ixzz1tFjOcLW4