President Obama, who turns 50 today, celebrated last night with a star-studded Chicago extravaganza that also doubled as a big-bucks fundraiser, raising a reported $3.6 million for his re-election campaign. VIP seats were going for $38,500 a pop. The entertainment included Herbie Hancock, Jennifer Hudson, and OK Go.
The ballroom where the main event was held rends for $40,000 per night according to the UK Daily Mail, which wonders where Michelle Obama was during the fantastically expensive soiree. “It is understood that the First Lady avoided the preparations for her husband’s birthday with a vacation to Spain,” muses the Daily Mail. That’s what most people would do, assuming they had unlimited access to taxpayer-funded luxury transportation.
After the main party, Obama retired to a more “intimate” dinner with a hundred top supporters. Then he jetted back to Washington, where two private parties will be held for him today.
Obama’s people have been complaining to the media that attending to the actual duties of the Presidency has been interfering with his fundraising efforts. From an Associated Press report:
"We're going to raise significantly less in the third quarter than we did in the second quarter," said Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager. "We will not be able to replace all of these events just because of his busy schedule. We always knew that he had his job and we had to do this around his schedule, and the truth is we just have to deal with canceling a month's worth of events."
Gallup says Obama lost seven points off his approval rating during his embarrassing debt-ceiling crisis performance. To work up his rock-bottom poll numbers, the President announced a three-day taxpayer-funded campaign tour of Midwestern states by bus, during which he will ostensibly “talk to folks about growing the economy and creating jobs,” according to White House press secretary Jay Carney.
When the President and his family travel, the cost is staggering. Even leaving the cost of his birthday party aside, the taxpayers spent millions just to shuttle him to Chicago and back for a night. And yet, everyone else is sternly lectured to make sacrifices, chip in, and “pay their fair share” by the President.
The American government is so far in the hole that “broke” doesn’t begin to describe it. Leadership involves setting examples. In the Information Age, Obama can do what so many American businesses have done to reduce their far lower travel expenses, and use teleconferencing. He actually did host a big videoconference from his Chicago birthday bash, to reach out to his devoted supporters. He could have done that from the White House, and held a modest birthday party at the White House, before beginning his fifteenth announced “hard pivot to focus on job creation.”
Obama Zombies may never get tired of hearing stale Marxist rhetoric from people who live like French kings at their expense, but the rest of us are sick of it. It’s time to see some of those “sacrifices” we keep hearing about, from the people who keep demanding them. The masters of the State should live like the humble beggars they are.
