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Old 06-30-2006, 02:56 PM   #15 (permalink)
host
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights
You're over thinking it, Host. This particular visit, by a Republican Vice President, is for a fundraiser to benefit a Republican candidate. No problem there. The problem is...why should tax payer money, a good portion of which was collected from non-Republicans, be used to pay for that visit?

Turn it the other way, a visit, by a Democratic Vice President, for a fundraiser to benefit a Democratic candidate...it's every bit as wrong.

Now...had the VP come to Grand Island to officiate the opening of a new swimming pool, or to discuss the War on Terror at the local Farmer's Co-Op...then fine. Grand Island should foot the bill. But not for a partisan fundraiser. I see it as a gross misuse of taxpayer money.
I disagree....Bill O'Rights....because I don't get the impression that you fully understood the context of the examples that I chose to post.

Both of the articles that I posted, referred to exclusively partisan, political events....(that is why I posted quotation marks around the word "visit" in the Clinton Hyde Park appearance.), that involved local security costs for POTUS "visits"....Clinton to a DLC function in Hyde Park, NY in 2000, and Bush at his party's convention in 2004.

My point is that the local governments in these less prominent places have to "deal with it" when security costs fall to them from any appearance in their area by a POTUS or a VEE-POTUS. Do you think that the majority of NYC or New York metro area residents were in favor of a $40 million dollar expense to provide security at Bush's RNC convention? Only a minority of the folks who lived in that area voted for Bush in 2000, or in 2004....yet they had to foot the bill, for what was more of a partisan media perfromance, than it was a nominating convention as it was in no sense, a contest. Do you think that NYC spends that amount on extra security for every convention of that size?

The expense was direcrly related to the physical presence of Bush and Cheney and their families when they were present in NYC, and in dealing with the protests against Bush/Cheney poilicies that the majority of NYC residents were against. They had to pay for the security at that convention when a poll showed that half of NYC residents believed that Bush and Cheney were somehow culpable in the 9/11 attacks. Many were of the opinion that the RNC chose NYC as the convention venue, in an attempt to gain a political advantage in their "war on terrior" themed campaign strategy.

NYC and DC perpetually must deal with unreimbursed costs of the fallout from diplomatic immunity afforded by the federal government to high concentrations of foreign diplomats and their relatives. These foreigners cannot be prosecuted for violent felonies, or even for illegal parking or for delinquent parking tickets.

Again....it is the folks in the samller towns and more rural areas who vote for Bush and Chenery. Those are the places where Bush disproportionally held his partisan "town meetings" before screened and ticketed audiences in his 2004 campaign and during last year's SSI "reform", "sixty city" tour. That also seemed to be a partisan campaign that lacked support from metro areas.

There is a new political dynamic in federal politics. Nearly all of the congressional committee chairmen, and Bush and Cheney hail from more sparsely populated areas. The folks who vote for them will have to pay the tab locally to provide security for them when they come to their environs, whether on official business or on partisan fund raising appearance.

These smaller places have a lock on the political process and the earmarked pork that results from that control. Most cities have no equal representation in congress or in the white house, anymore. The recent DHS funding distribution for terrorism related protection, reinforces that. Wyoming....Cheney's home state, has received much higher federal funding, per capita, for homeland security that NYC has, each year since 2002.

Big cities paid the police overtime during events like you described in your OP, BO'R.....for many years. Clinton practically lived in Manhattan whenever possible, when he was POTUS, and NYC taxpayers paid a high price because of his frequent presence. Bush avoiuds NYC and stayed out of New Haven from 1968, until he spoke at the Yale graduation, early in his presidency.

The cost of hosting and of protecting these folks, no matter why the come, while they hold the office, has traditionally fallen disproportionately on local taxpayers. It isn't fair and it isn't evenly distributed to all taxpayers.

Neither is the frustration of deporting the relative of a diplomat who seems guilty of the rape/murder of a young resident of NYC or DC, letting the perp off scott free because of reciprocal treaty agreements. Neither is it fair for secularly influenced local taxpayers to pay for medical and welfare costs of birthing and rearing unwanted children, born to mothers who wanted to abort but who were prevented by local law or protests, from access to safe, legal abortion.

How about the extra litigation and security costs that taxpayers who don't support the death penalty, must pay when a condemned prisioner, who the state has already spent huge sums on, for both sides of the litigation, now comes up for execution, and a large crowd of protestors is drawn to the death house environs, and must be controlled and protected from injury or unsanitary conditions?

As I posted before, small places have been organized to field new politcal clout, and collectively they have achieved new politcal power and new pork.
They also will experience costs and responsibilities that come with their newly gained power. What they've accomplished may not be practical, even for them to shoulder. That is why cities are probably more efficient places for politicians to gather and enjoy professional security services and medical infrastructure, and the like. The current government doesn't see it that way, doesn't fund it that way, and doesn't campaign much in urban areas.

The folks in Grand Island should pay the bill for Cheney's local, security just as the folks in bigger towns have for many years.......
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