Dear Citizens: For the second time in my adult life, I am not ashamed of my country. I want to thank all of you hard working Americans for paying $242 thousand--plus additional expenses--for my vacation in Spain . My daughter Sasha, several long-time family friends, my personal staff and various guests had a wonderful time there. Honestly, you just haven't lived until you have stayed in a $2,500.00 per night suite at a 5-Star luxury hotel. We only booked 70 rooms for our friends, staff and family. Thank you also for the use of Air Force Two and the 70 Secret Service personnel who tagged along to be sure we were safe and our every need cared for at all times. Air Force Two only used 47,500 gallons of jet fuel for this trip and carbon emissions were a mere 1,031 tons of CO2. True, it costs $11,500 per hour to operate Air Force Two and each additional plane for the other members of our party group, but it was well worth the price. These are only rough estimates, mind you, but they are close (who's counting?). Still, that's quite a carbon footprint as my good friend Al Gore would say, so I must ask American citizens to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars and drive less too, so we can lessen our combined carbon footprint. I know times are hard and millions of you are struggling to put food on the table and trying to make ends meet. I do appreciate your sacrifice and hope you find work soon. But I was really exhausted after Barack took our family on a luxury vacation in Maine a few weeks ago. We just had to get away for a few days. Will write more from Martha's Vineyard where we will spend our sixth vacation this year with more of our family and friends. Fondly, M. Obama
Ya know, I get that the President and First Lady get to go on trips, spend money, all that jazz. I get it, it's a perk of the job. It always will be and always has been. My issue is, if you're preaching to the country about how we shouldn't be "going out to Vegas", but rather saving money in these hard times, then lead by example. If the unemployment is 10% (or WAY more) and people in this country are in that bad of shape financially, then why not spend money like that on a vacation IN THE STATES where some of our people could use the business.. Seems like that would be the "prudent" thing to do. Or, don't take or send your wife on a 17th vacation in a year when there's a recession about.
