Tuesday, November 2, 2010

$200 Million A Day for Obama's India Visit???

That can't be right, can it?

But an Indian news outlet reports that's how much it will cost the US taxpayers for Obama's visit to Mumbai, India, which comes almost right after the election that is likely to cost his party dearly. Obama and his grand entourage are departing the US on November 5.

From NDTV:

Mumbai: The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.

"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

Obama will be in India for 3 and a half days from November 6 to November 9, when he departs for Jakarta, Indonesia.

If the above report is anywhere near accurate, the India leg alone will cost $800 million. It is a 10-day trip, I've heard. Indonesia (Nov 9-10), South Korea (G20 Summit, Nov 11-12), and Japan (APEC Summit, Nov 13-14) are not cheap destinations either.

The potential total for the trip: $2 billion.

Fit for an king, an emperor, a despot, a dictator, a fool.

A greater fool would be the taxpayers, who will be honored to foot the bill.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

This cannot be true. Maybe they are counting the salaries of those along for the ride but they would be paid anyway if left home. We didn't see any of this on MSNBC prior to the election.

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