The Patriot Post® · Obama Spends $6M to Fly Air Force One to Africa

In the age of sequestered military spending — reduced forces, grounded Thunderbirds, Blue Angels stripped of their wings and even blockaded memorials — Barack Obama thinks nothing of pulling nearly $6 million from the Air Force budget to fund the 29-hour Air Force One flight to and from Kenya and Ethiopia. Presidential trips abroad are classified information, and no one quite knows how much Obama spent on this trip to visit his extended family and attend the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit. When he visited Africa in 2013, the trip cost an estimated $100 million. Typically, presidents spend more time abroad in their second term. Currently, Obama is not the executive with the most frequent flyer miles — that platinum membership belongs to Bill Clinton — but Obama is close. Michael Tasselmyer, policy analyst at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, wrote, “The last official accounting of any Presidential travel was conducted over a decade ago in GAO’s 1999 report on President Clinton’s trips to Africa, Chile, and China. … There are understandable security considerations to keep in mind, but until more information is made available, there can be no public debate on the costs and benefits of international travel.” It’s not so much the travel money, it’s the priorities.