Commercial flight with a pet carrier 99.7% cheaper...
For any not familiar with the V-22 Osprey of the US Marine Corps, the innovative hybrid plane (Bell/Boeing development inspired by Jimmy Carter's 1980 disaster-in-the-desert) can take-off with a heavy payload vertically (2x largest 'copter/24 troops), then turn the wings slowly forward and fly like a conventional prop plane.
After considerable initial controversy regarding dependability, safety, and cost overruns in the 1990s development cycle -including a real bashing on 'Sixty Minutes'- the V-22 Osprey has turned-out to be very useful in Iraq and Afghanistan, what with it's large payload and much-higher top speed (300+mph) in comparison to any helicopter. The Marine Corps have ordered 408 of the $88M aircraft, half of them already delivered.
Where we have trouble here is when our hyper-elitist Commander-in-Chief decides to dispatch two of these complex, expensive machines to the service of a left-behind-in-DC doggie: the Osprey burns $11,500 of hard-earned-taxpayer's-money per hour (not counting staff/crew's salaries and sky-high maintenance costs), meaning the 6-hour round-trip (x2) ran-up a bill over $140,000 of fuel and basic expenses for a mission of airlifting the Obamas' stupid dog to Martha's Vinyard ASAP.
This being same Obama that disingenuously cancelled 4th-of-July fireworks celebrations for enlisted men and women and then put the kaibosh on military airshows (not to mention screwing students out of White House tours and HS history classes) 'due to the sequester' at the same time he was off on a luxurious, ego-bloating $100M African rockstar tour- once again, on your dime.
As for what it OUGHT to have cost taxpayers to ship a dog to the President and his spoiled, entitlement-drunken family, I'm not going to waste anybody's time on a phantom estimate, but do note that a consumer group recently described shipping estimates to send a dog (from the USA to Germany) of $4295 'totally outrageous', going on to say 'How do these people face their God?'.
They considered this price quote highway robbery... yet while Germany is 10x father-away from DC than Martha's Vinyard, it's still ONE HELL of a lot less than $150,000+... 97.2% less!
Truth is, most airlines ship the dog as extra-baggage for $100... meaning a White House staffer with an approved doggy carrier could have simply bought a $400 plane ticket right to Martha's Vinyard Airport (+$100 for Bo) = five-hundred bucks.
Yes- 99.7% less -not even considering Marine salaries and other costs- and there via JetBlue in just 3.5 hours, a mere 30-60 minutes longer than the Ospreys take (and to the same airport).
How much fireworks/White House tours could that $150,000-200,000 of COMPLETELY blown money have bought us, Dear Leader-
you loathsome fraud?
you loathsome fraud?
And how many million$ MORE are you blowing now, staying at a $7.6M, 5000-sq-ft Martha's Vinyard 'retreat' (surrounded by rich, white liberals), and rubbing it in our face while we are told to just suck-it-up and do without "because of the sequester"?
