oneworldtalk

This email has been making its rounds recently shows another urban legend ruled by prejudices, misinformation and superficial assessments.
Here is how it goes :



The facts :

Price Check conducted by urban legends and Comments :

Here's what's true in the above text: G.W. Bush received more criticism — mainly from Congressional Democrats, but also from some members of the press — for the "extravagant" cost of his inauguration in 2005 than Barack Obama received for the cost of his in 2009.

The figures cited above are inaccurate and misleading, however. The $42 million cited for Bush, while roughly accurate, doesn't include the cost of security and other incidentals covered by federal and state governments. The $120 million cited for Obama (which is actually a bit on the low side) does include those costs. It's a false comparison.

Traditionally, everything except security, clean-up, and the swearing-in ceremony itself is paid for via private donations. By most estimates, the Bush inaugural committee raised and spent about $42.3 million. At last report, the Obama inaugural committee had raised and spent almost exactly the same amount ("more than $41 million," according to the Associated Press).

Factoring in the rest of the expenditures, in 2005 federal and local governments were tapped for an additional $115 million to cover security, swearing-in, clean-up, and a paid holiday for federal workers on the day of the Bush inauguration. That adds up to a combined total of $157.8 million from both private and government sources.

There's no final tally yet for the Obama inauguration, but given that at least five times as many people attended, security and clean-up costs were surely higher than for the 2005 event. Press estimates currently range around $150 million total, including both private and government expenditures.

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