Welcome to another episode of Republicans crying foul over nothing:
In a move that is rich in irony, President Obama agreed Tuesday night to sign an emergency deficit reduction bill that does almost nothing to rein in spending and then jetted out to Hawaii to resume his vacation at an extra cost of more than $3 million to taxpayers.
You can check out Memeorandum yourself to see all the right wing outrage over this.
But let’s go back to March 2005, when we won’t heading over the fiscal cliff. Instead the only thing the Republicans were worried about was one lady in Florida named Terri Schiavo. Congress was called back from recess to take up the late night measure. George Bush boarded Air Force One and flew from Crawford back to DC in the early hours of the morning, only to fly back out to Arizona later that day.
Now I have tried to hammer down an exact cost on all this, but haven’t been able to find one. I have seen estimates that it cost between $5 and $7 million alone just for the congressional session. I wonder how much added cost was in there for Bush flying back and forth? Whatever the number, you can be damn sure it was higher than what the Republicans are whining about today.