The Bailey Blog

I’d like to start by congratulating President elect Barack Obama and wishing him good luck as the 44^th President of the United States of America. 

But now, I’d like to ask you Mr. President, as a worried American citizen in these tough economic times, where did the money come from to pay for your extravagant inauguration?  I know that there has been some disagreement about the total cost for your inauguration and that figure won’t be accurately calculated for months, but I do know that the security costs are “out of this world” and the figure of $160 million has been thrown around, which wins the award for the most expensive celebration in U.S. history.     

Now, I do understand the significance and historical value of this inauguration and presidency, and I do commend you President Obama for the enormous strides you’ve already made in lifting the racial divide of America.  However, throughout your campaign process, you’ve always contended that you are “sort of like us,” meaning that you are a blue-collared individual.  Well, let me just say Mr. President, I don’t think there are many blue-collared workers that can or are spending millions of dollars on a shin-dig to entertain and excite millions of people while America is struggling through one of its worst economic times since the Great Depression.  

Also, I’ve read that you pride yourself on reducing the carbon-dioxide emissions that result from burning fossil fuels.  Just to confirm, were you aware that your inauguration festivities amounted to an estimated carbon footprint of more than 500M pounds?

In case you were unaware, this significant calculation includes hundreds of private jets, thousands of horses utilized and the millions of personal vehicles that transported participants during the historical event.  The 500M pounds of CO2 emissions generated from your inauguration festivities are equivalent to the carbon footprint of a typical American household over the course of 57,598 years. 

With these words, I do hope that President Obama succeeds, but I also think that this inauguration was irresponsible and a poor way to kick off his presidency.  Especially to those individuals that weren’t devout supporters of him from the beginning. 

And for those individuals who have supported President Obama from the start and accepted his message of “Change,” then I would just like to warn that strides will not be made immediately.  Please hold those “Lifetime Achievement Awards” that some are ready to bestow President Obama and wait until he initiates the change and turnaround of the American economy that he has vowed to do.  In the meantime, don’t dedicated Obama supporters wonder why the President had such an extravagant inauguration in these tough times? 

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.