All of these emails about the Obama Inauguration have gotten me curious about the cost of the event to taxpayers and from donations to the Presidential Inaugural Committee. So I decided to do a very rudimentary Google search and see what I could find out. Here goes.
First of all there is
this link, which tells about some of the costs of Bush's 2004 Inaugural and Tractor Pull:
The Presidential Inaugural Committee has said putting on the inaugural events will cost about $40 million, which is being raised from private donors -- more than half of them corporations that gave as much as $250,000 each -- as well as sales of tickets and merchandise.
In addition, the federal government and District of Columbia will bear the costs of providing security, expected to be around $20 million.
Some critics have questioned spending millions on inauguration festivities in a time of war and after the devastation of December's tsunami in South Asia. But organizers insist that the pageant is an appropriate celebration of American democracy.
"We're a nation at war, but we do believe it's important, through privately raised money, [that] we ought to go forward with the inaugural festivities," said Dan Bartlett, White House communications director.
Organizers have included a number of events to honor military personnel, including Thursday night's Commander in Chief Ball, which is expected to draw 2,000 troops.
"The president made it clear that he wanted to pay special tribute in a special way to those armed forces -- men and women -- who put their lives on the line every day, with particular emphasis on the war on terror," said Greg Jenkins, the inaugural committee's executive director
Some more digging showed me
this about Clinton's 1996 Inaugural and Orgy (featuring Fleetwood Mac!)
- it's a brief snippet of an article, but some of the pertinent numbers are there.
While organizers of President Clinton's second inaugural have touted next month's celebration as smaller and less expensive than the 1993 extravaganza, the cost borne by taxpayers will be the highest ever, according to White House records.
This taxpayer expense was not highlighted at a recent briefing by inaugural organizers, who focused instead on the strict standards imposed this time for collecting private donations for "cheaper" parties and other special events.
But according to budgets provided by the White House and Congress -- and not including the undisclosed inaugural budget of the Secret Service -- the public cost is at least $12.7 million.
This year's festivities are promising to be bigger than any other's on record. How big? Well this blog entry from CNN.com goes into some detail about the money being asked for by Washington D.C. for security alone.
"Even though we're very practiced at inaugurations and large events, this is one that will rewrite the book on inaugurations," said the Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC, who has requested an additional $15 million from Congress to help the city cover costs. That would double the $15 million Congress has already allocated to pay for all national events and demonstrations in Washington during 2009.
DC Mayor Adrian Fenty agreed costs for increased security and crowd control would dwarf the original allocation. And for a city facing a budget shortfall and the same economic downturn affecting the rest of the country, now is not the time to rack up debt, Fenty told CNN.
"We are in talks with the federal government as we sit here today to let them know — I think they already know that that's not enough," he said, referring to the $15 million already allocated. "Now the question is if you want to make sure that you cross every 't' and dot every 'i', it does look like it's going to be significantly more than that."
Fenty predicted costs for the city would run close to $50 million, the same amount Congress provided to both Denver and St. Paul, Minnesota to host the Republican and Democratic conventions earlier this year.
From what I'm gathering about this Inauguration, the security costs for Clinton's '96 party, Bush's '04 shindig, and Obama's '09 love fest look like this:
- Clinton: $12.7 million
- Bush: $20 million
- Obama: $30 million (projected)
That's a lot of money. But the real money begins to pile up not in the cost of the security, but in the cost of the actual Inauguration and the festivities that accompany it, which are paid for (in part) by the Presidential Inauguration Committee. The numbers look like this:
- Clinton: It's not specified, but from the sound of that article it was a smaller party than the '92 Inaugural.
- Bush: $40 million
- Obama: unknown as of yet, but I imagine it will be bigger than Bush's in '04
I want to be fair about this next part, so I'm going to play it safe and assume for a second Obama's Inauguration costs the same $40 million that Bush's did in '04. That puts the total cost for this Inauguration at around $70 million, and that's being conservative.
$70 million dollars. That's a ton of money. Granted, I didn't account for inflation, and Bush and Obama's security costs are going to be significantly higher than Clinton's due to our Post 9/11 fear fest, but still $70 million dollars.
$70 million for a party that most Americans aren't going to be able to go to. Oprah and Bill Gates will be able to go. Michael Stipe and Bono will be there. Us poor people? We'll read about it in
Star Magazine eating cake. Let us eat cake.
More later.
