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Taxpayers pay for the plane trips The presentation took all of four minutes, according to the Mobile Press-Register. Then he boarded the presidential limousine for the reception at the city's convention center. That event plus a stopover at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens earlier in the day placed the imprimatur of official government business on the trip and allowed the White House to bill the taxpayers for the nearly $60,000 to $70,000-perhour cost of flying Air Force One and the other expenses for setting up the trip. The White House also pays for most of the President's traveling party and for the security, helicopters, presidential limo and other vehicles that travel ahead of him. In cases where fundraising is involved costs are apportioned according to how much of the trip was political and how much was official government business. Without question it is a significant taxpayer subsidy of presidential political trips, because the political parties or candidates pay far less for the total visit than the government. It should be pointed out that this is not something started in the Bush administration. It began with White House accounting procedures established in 1982 and every president since Ronald Reagan has used the same formula to apportion the costs. However, it is well established that Bill Clinton was the first to make excessive use of this advantage for incumbents. According to sources I reviewed this week, the accounting formula calls for the White House to calculate how much of a trip's time was devoted to politics and how much to official business. The candidate or state party is then billed for its share of the local costs. The government pays 100 percent of the president's transportation, communications and security costs, regardless of the trip's purpose. Thus, it appears that the Browns Ferry stop got the President cheap seats to Alabama and the official presentation as he exited Air Force One got him on to Mobile at a reduced rate…for everybody but the taxpayers. In my view this is just another forced political contribution placed on the citizens. A president ought to be able to campaign with proper protection, but the taxpayers ought not be required to pick up the biggest share of the tab. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Forget that punch on the final day of the legislative session. The real "sucker punch" thrown on the Senate floor was a resolution offered by Sen. E. B. McClain, D-Birmingham, which purports to make the State Senate a local government group eligible for state health insurance. State Finance Director Jim Main is urging the State Employees Insurance Board to reject the provisions of the resolution, arguing that the Senate is trying to get around the law as it already exists. Main points out that the health care benefits the Senate voted for its members would increase their total compensation by about $5,000 a year, and says that the senators are trying to give themselves health insurance "under a local government employee health insurance program for which they are not logically eligible." Main also believes the action is a violation of state law, given that the Legislature passed a law in 1990 allowing its members to participate in the State Employees Health Insurance Program. Under that plan, lawmakers pay the full cost of their coverage. The Legislature has never voted to amend that legislation - and the late-night resolution doesn't qualify as a change in the law, Main says. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THIS WEEK IN ALABAMA HISTORY FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY: On June 27, 1880 Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia. Having lost both sight and hearing by illness as a small child, Keller's life story and activism inspired new attitudes toward those with handicaps.
Columnist Bob Ingram is resting at home after a hospital stay. Bob Martin, editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent is filling in for him.
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