Jan 20 2009
A $150+ Million inauguration, an “emergency,” Thomas Jefferson’s ghost
As people watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, reports on the final cost for the spectacle hover somewhere around the $150-170 million mark.
Numerous donors gave $50,000 each for the pageantry, and as it is their money they can do whatever they want with it, but if Obama truly believed all that he preaches, why doesn’t he ask these donors to do something more productive with this cash?
Especially when the economy is in dire shape, couldn’t money be much more useful in the hands of, for example, food pantries?
I would love to see Obama throw a news conference where he says something on the order of, “Thank you for your generous donations to throw me a big party. But as much as I appreciate it, I would rather see you use the money to help your friends and neighbors who are in trouble. They need this money much more than I do.”
Somehow I don’t see that happening.
On top of it, Bush declared a state of “emergency” in D.C. because of the number of people expected to show up for the inauguration. Why do such a thing? With such a state declared, it opens up the possibility of more federal funding for the event - which means more taxpayer dollars for a silly spectacle. Last year $15 million was allocated to D.C. and so Bush’s declaration could bring additional cash from FEMA.
Perhaps we should look to an example set by Thomas Jefferson on his inauguration of March 4, 1801. By all accounts it was a relatively simple “little parade” intended to make a political statement.
Washington and Adams before him rode to their inaugurations in elaborate coaches with a good deal of pomp and pageantry. Biographer Joseph J. Ellis summed up the impact, “Simplicity and austerity…were the messages of his inaugural march. It was a minimalist statement about a purging of excess and a recovery of essence.”
Some highlights from his address -
“though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression”
“I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.”
“Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”
Amen.
Sources: Joseph J. Ellis. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. Vintage Books, 1998.
Associated Content - Obama Inauguration to Cost $170 Million January 19, 2009
CBS News - Bush Declares “Emergency” For Inauguration January 13, 2009
