http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature ... auguration
so, how much is Barry's costing again??Bush's overblown celebration ranks as one of the few political issues that most Americans agree on -- a phenomenon the press ignored.
For the media, simply reporting on the cost of the inauguration proved to be a challenge. Most major outlets stuck to the lower, albeit still unprecedented, figure of $40 million, which the Presidential Inaugural Committee said it hopes to raise from private donors. But a more accurate figure may be $50 million. That's the amount cited by the Washington Times (which is plugged in to GOP circles). But even that number doesn't take into account the nearly $20 million that's being spent for security, putting the real cost at closer to $70 million, instead of the media's preferred $40 million.
And it might have been helpful in the limited media debate that did take place about the inauguration's costs to point out that if the $40 million to $50 million raised for the GOP's parties had been donated to the war effort, as some have suggested, the money would have covered only about six hours of the U.S. military's operations in Iraq. (Costs are running roughly $110,000 per minute there.) Also interesting but unnoted is that between the 2001 and 2005 inaugurations, Bush and his supporters have spent roughly $115 million total on parties and parades.
