Michelle and Barack Obama’s failed campaign in Copenhagen, Denmark to lure the 2016 Olympics to Chicago cost the taxpayers at least $467,175, not including the use of two Air Force Boeing 747s and several Air Force cargo planes.
Early in the heady days of his administration, the President and his wife blatantly lobbied the International Olympic Committee to award the Summer Olympics to Chicago. In September, 2009 they sent a large entourage including members of the White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic, and Youth Sport, two cabinet secretaries, and White House staff to the IOC meetings in Copenhagen. The information was obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The costs for hotels alone were $235,659, which included the rental of seven “offices.” The cost for an extra hotel day in Copehagen cost taxpayers $33,044 dollars.
The nearly half a million dollars does not include the cost for any of the large Air Force jets commandeered for the failed venture. The IOC awarded the Olympic games to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“Barack and Michelle Obama wasted taxpayer dollars on a junket that seemed designed for one purpose — to take care of their Chicago cronies who stood to gain financially from the Olympics racket,” says Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The fact that Valerie Jarrett needed an ‘ethics waiver’ to lead this failed bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago tells you almost all you need to know about the scandalous nature of this trip.”
These creeps have spent tax payer money with no regard. Their sense of entitlement comes from a lifetime of making money from favors and connections as opposed to productive works. The US needs to evict them from the white house ASAP, before they manage total devastation of America. I’ve never seen such an undeserving POTUS!
Be thankful. If he’d succeeded, it would have costed the taxpayers at least half a bil.
Judicial Watch is a great orginisation. It’s too bad everything they do takes so long. It’s not their fault.
Well, look at it as a gamble where some money had to be risked so that America and Chicago and the networks could lose millions while corrupt insiders skimmed and scammed. But he meant well.
Anyway I’m sure Chicago has more leased assets they can sell to Qatar or Abu Dhabi for 2 or 300 years to cover the losses as well as corrupt pensions where people retire 12 times and continue working.
At least the state could have benefited financially if they won
It did become an indicator of how lavish a lifestyle he believes he’s entitled to at taxpayers expense
Why people aren’t more enraged baffles me.
In the end he ‘ll fly off on the same plane exposing he supported “the working class” the problems he inherited/created were due to Republicans. His retirement will be supported by speeches at the companies he denigrated and all the while insist he’s not one of the 1percent.
A sad reflection of society believing change would come from an inexperienced politician who believes in social justice and redistribution of wealth over hard work and self reliance
New definition of poor – Pelosi + Obama + Reed
May we fare better in 2012
I gather this is the known cost to Federal taxpayers. I know that it cost Chicago taxpayers a lot more.
Among other things, the city acquired the shuttered Michael Reese Hospital complex on the Near South Side, to be the site of the Olympic Village. The cost was $86M. The owner was supposed to kick back $33M to the city; if that actually happened the cost was “only” $53M.
The site has sat derelict ever since. The city may eventually sell it to a developer. But the outer-downtown real estate boom is over, and the demolition and clean-up costs are estimated to be at least $32M. So it will be many years before anyone buys it, and they won’t pay anything near what the city laid out.
What was funny was that opposition to the Olympics included the far-left OWSer types and most of the city’s cops. (Blogger “Second City Cop” proposed a distinctive Chicago mascot for the Olympics: “Chalkie”, the chalk outline from a murder scene.)
I don’t recollect if any prior administration has sent the First Family to try to win such a bid. At the time, I thought it was a good thing that he was supporting the bid, but was a little surprised at the personal appearance….
– money to make, er, never mind.