I don’t object to presidents having a little break, now and then.

I’m swell that way.

Hey, everybody needs a vacation, right? Obama works hard for his very nice living, and far be it from me to deny a working man a little well-earned rest and relaxation. I have no doubt that a couple weeks on an Oahu beach will send Barack back to the Oval Office marvelously restored and revitalized and ready to confront the problems that 2014 holds in store on a fresh set of Duracells.

And think of the fun for little Sasha and Malia, splashing in the surf, collecting shells along the waterline, wearing grass skirts at the hukilau – the stuff of treasured memories. There’s a reason that millions of Americans make Hawaii their winter destination of choice. Why should the Obamas be any different?

Because it’s costing you and me a fortune, that’s why.

The number that most often appears in the press is $4 million. That’s the cost to taxpayers, they say, every time the Obamas jet off to the 50^th state for the holidays, which they’ve done every Christmas for the last five years running, which yields a cumulative tab of something in the range of $20 million dollars worth of leis and luaus. But if that sounds like a lot of your tax dollars and mine, it’s really just the tip of a far more expensive iceberg.

It sets us all back about $180,000 an hour to keep Air Force One in the air, and takes about nine hours to fly from Washington, D.C. to Honolulu, which makes for a super-first-class round-trip fare in the neighborhood of $3.25 million dollars. Tack on advanced security teams, chase planes, and air and lodgings for the massive and ever-present Presidential retinue, and you’re probably getting pretty close to the stated mark.

But the mark should be set a lot higher. Last year, when Obama was wrangling with Congressional Republicans over raising the debt ceiling, Michelle and the girls flew out ahead of him, doubling the mileage and dumping an additional $3.25 million in the First Family’s Christmas stocking. This year, Barack flew back mid-way through their holiday, again doubling the cost and tapping the public purse for something approaching $8 million.

But wait! There’s more!

There’s always more.

Lots of real costs aren’t counted in the standard press estimate. For the two weeks of the Obamas’ vacation, the Secret Service has uncontested control of Oahu, and it doesn’t care how much you or I spent on our modest junior suite at the Hilton Alana Waikiki, or what we’re hoping to see and do while we’re there. The president is a high-value target, and the Secret Service is quite reasonably fixated on protecting the Commander in Chief. And if that’s institutionally expected and patriotically commendable, it can play havoc with civilian economies.

On the tiny island of Oahu, already burdened with the second worst traffic in the country, security teams descend like a swarm of locusts, barricading streets, installing checkpoints and generally restricting public ground movement during peak tourist season. The president and his 30-car motorcade breeze through the maze of inspection stations while local, tourist and commercial traffic is choked nearly to unconsciousness. Local law enforcement and emergency services are on high alert, and on ‘round-the-clock overtime, from well before the Obamas arrive until long after they’ve left, straining state and municipal budgets.

Tourist-heavy Kailua Bay becomes a densely-patrolled security zone, and anyone inadvertently blundering across the Coast Guard’s invisible cordon risks a $40,000 fine or 10 years in federal prison. Popular surfing spots on the bay are off-limits during the Obama’s vacation, bad news for local businesses that depend on them. The beaches and shorelines near the Obamas’ residence are also taboo, and Coast Guard vessels stand 24-hour picket all along the waterway that ebbs and flows past the foot of their sculpted yard.

Nobody worries about Imperial Japanese Zeroes, anymore, but the Secret Service is still diligent in protecting the president from airborne assault. Temporary flight restrictions require flights within 30 nautical miles of CinC’s location to obtain special FAA approval before turning rotor or prop, which is a major headache for an island simply buzzing with flightseers. Because there is no place on Oahu that’s not within 30 nautical miles of everywhere else on Oahu, that stricture applies to all of them. And standard practice designates the airspace within 10 nautical miles of Barack Obama as off-limits to all but law enforcement, “life-saving” medical, and military traffic, effectively idling all private and commercial aircraft based within that circle. And, of course, that 10-mile radius moves along with the Obamas every time they and their caravan head off in search of touristical adventures, grounding Cessnas, Bells, and vacationers’ long-planned activities as they go.

Although it may seem like a small thing compared to the expense of Air Force One, the Obamas’ posh vacation rental house on the gated peninsula of Paradise Point set taxpayers back a lot more than the $50,000 rent the Obamas’ are footing out-of-pocket. While far easier to secure than, say, the Royal Hawaiian, the five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath bungalow wasn’t built for such problematic guests and needed substantial upgrades before the First Family could settle in. Pre-Obama listed at about $3 million dollars, the waterfront sugar-shack known as “Plantation Estate” had to be outfitted with bullet-proof glass throughout, and modifications to the grounds facilitate surveillance and protective tactics. And so the leader of the free world can stay in the Beltway loop while strolling white sands a half a world away, the property was decked out with state-of-the-art satellite communications and encryption equipment, all of which must be uninstalled at public expense when the Obamas pack up their “I-Heart-Honolulu” T-shirts and go home.

Hard figures are just about impossible to come by. They’re just about impossible for me to come by, anyway.

Averaging available estimates, it’s likely that every Obama Christmas since 2009 has required close to $20 million federal tax dollars to celebrate, for a five-year total of nearly $100 million, which whopping figure doesn’t account for local and state taxes deployed, local and state taxes lost, lost commercial revenue, and collateral costs borne by John and Jane Q. Public. It also can’t address the frustration and disappointment experienced by thousands of locals and vacationers caused by the annual presidential disruptions, costs that have no dollar value, but are no less painful.

It probably sounds like I’m picking on Obama, and I suppose I am. But I don’t mean to. My beef is less with him, specifically, than with the broad acceptance of allowing a public official to lavish public monies on personal amusements. Fact is, the problem is probably just more obvious now because Barack Obama is among relatively few recent presidents who haven’t had a private retreat to fall back on. Reagan and George W. had their ranches. Bush Sr. had Kennebunkport. Even Jimmy Carter could hide out on his peanut farm when the pressures of office grew wearisome. But if there’s no shame in not owning a private compound wherein to recluse, there’s no excuse for sticking it to your constituents every Christmas just because you don’t. Granted, $20 million is a drop in the federal government’s $3.6 trillion 2013 bucket, but there’s principle to be considered, and principle matters.

The Obamas – and, to a distressing degree, the press – justify their annual Hawaiian holiday as a “family tradition.” I would say that’s no justification at all. Most American families have Christmas traditions, and most of those traditions are dictated by, and at the changing mercies of, factors beyond mere whim and desire. If a family can’t afford to spend the holiday at Epcot Center, they celebrate at home. If a corporate employee is transferred from Chicago to the Dallas office, their family necessarily trades family portraits at the Christmas Market for postcards of Santa’s sleigh pulled by a team of armadillos. Every time a soldier is reassigned to a new post, that family’s traditions are adjusted accordingly.

The president’s post is in Washington, D.C., and he should accept the limitations it places on his family’s movements and recreations. If the Obamas’ “tradition” can only be supported through massive infusions of tax dollars, then it’s a tradition that should never have been started in the first place. For a president to insist on a right to squander mountains of public funds on his family’s vacation because he did it last year, and the year before that, defies both reason and rectitude. Would you let the plumber gouge you just because he got away with it before?

There’s just something incredibly shabby and decidedly un-American about bartenders and teachers and small merchants subsidizing a “public servant” in his leisure pursuits to the tune of millions per year.

That same culture of political privilege and free-spending excess is what encourages the government to ask for a fleet of plush $65 million Gulfstream 550 jets to spare “Congressional leadership” the indignity of commercial air travel, or the drudgery of being ferried about at whim aboard bought-and-paid for Air Force executive aircraft. It’s why the Internal Revenue Service thinks nothing of blowing $49 million in two years on a series of swank and boozy “conferences.” And it’s why Congress approves $440,000 annually to pay for attendants to push the buttons in all of Capitol Hill’s fully automated elevators.

But, as I said about a 1,500 words ago, everybody needs a break, and no president can rightly be denied his down time. Trouble is, the office itself guarantees additional public expense and interruption every time its current occupant sticks his nose outside the White House door. Is there any place, the long-suffering wage-earner might wonder, where the President and his posse can kick back without kicking taxpayers in the teeth?

 

Officially, it’s Naval Support Facility Thurmont. Originally it was called Shangri La. These days, it’s better known as Camp David.

It was established by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 to provide presidents and their families with a peaceful, secure and convenient vacation destination. It’s located in Catoctin Mountain Park, nine square miles of hardwood splendor, peace and repose, resting just 70 miles and a half-hour helicopter ride from the South Lawn. It contains a miniature village of posh accommodations, all of them decked out with the finest amenities tax dollars can buy. It’s replete with first-order satellite communications and encryption technologies and a world-class kitchen. It’s the kind of top-tier Appalachian resort for which other folks might gladly lay down $2,500 a night, or more.

It’s operated by Navy personnel and guarded 24-7-365 by lean, green, mean Marines, comes equipped with its own Cold War-class bunker, and it’s already paid for through normal budgetary channels.

I would propose that all presidents – starting in 2014 and henceforth for all time to come – be required to take all vacations at Camp David. This simple and perfectly reasonable plan would not only save taxpayers a large fortune up front, it would spare the nation at large the collateral costs and inconvenience that attends every presidential holiday.

But perhaps a personage of such august position would find repetitive exposure to that brand of completely free luxury a tad monotonous.

Cry me a river.

Every occupation entails certain conditions, constraints and obligations, and if a politician sets his sights on a position with a $400,000 salary, a solid-gold benefit package and perks that would have made Tsar Alexander blush, he should be prepared to make some sacrifices for the job. No doubt the tax-paying 45-year-old Manhattan dishwasher who spends every Christmas, Easter and Independence Day with his family in a 2-bedroom cold-water walk-up in Queens would be more amenable to the arrangement, if only he could afford it, which he couldn’t in a million years, or if Camp David were available to civilians, which it isn’t and never will be. And it’s certain that the Marine private prepared to lay down his life for his vacationing CinC would prefer to spend his own holiday in Cabo, if his duty and his honor didn’t demand he spend it at his post.

While they may not always have a lot of honor, presidents have posts, too, and duties to the nation that elected them, and budgets to live within. They’re not kings, and the wealth of the nation is not at their disposal. If presidents don’t want to avail themselves of the plush vacation digs the country provides, they can spend the holidays languishing in the opulent comfort of the White House. Their high office doesn’t come with a blank check on the Treasury, or provision to indulge their every animal appetite, or the right to discomfit the productive public for purposes of personal entertainment.

But it does come with some pretty sweet bennies, and Camp David is one of them.

I’m sure the presidency is a stressful job, and I would encourage Barack to take advantage of that sumptuous taxpayer-funded resort every chance he gets.

 

I’m swell that way.