The Obamessiah's Vacation Home And Inauguration

From the New York Post:

The Obama family, on vacation in Barack Obama's native Hawaii, is staying in a $9 million single-story oceanfront home in a pricey but laid-back neighborhood over the mountain from downtown Honolulu, where the president-elect grew up.

The five-bedroom, wood-frame house sits on almost an acre of land fronting Kailua Beach, a favorite spot for windsurfers, kayakers and dogwalkers.

Obama's vacation home sits on a dead-end road with few other homes. It was built in 1934 and renovated in 2005.

Photographs from a 2007 real-estate listing show a stone-encircled swimming pool and an open-air sitting room with views of a grassy lawn and the ocean. City tax records show a Houston man bought the property in January for $9 million.

The home is listed on a vacation-rental directory, www.hawaiisbestrentals.com.

It is among the most expensive on a block where shoreline lots go for a minimum of $3 million and nonbeachfront properties easily top $1 million.

The figures outstrip the median single-family home price on Oahu, which stood at $594,500 in November.

Yeah, that's just like where we stay when we vacation to Hawaii several times a year.  How about you?

But what about the fact that he's rich?  Shouldn't he be able to spend his money however he wants?  Sure, no question.  So, let's instead look at how he handles public money.

We already know he wants to spend $1 trillion of taxpayer money on new social programs.  The start of that will be the largest inaugural celebration ever, with an expected price tag of over $50 million.  You and I will pay for it, of course.

To put things into perspective, I give you a couple of quotes:

I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
-- Thomas Jefferson --

"I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form."
-- Calvin Coolidge --

I understand the historic nature of this inauguration, the increasing costs of living, the expected crowds, yadda yadda...but come on.  If Obama really wanted to make a statement about his financial priorities, he could cut most of the cost out of this thing, have one giant celebration for a couple million bucks, and put the rest of the money back to spiraling national debt.  True, it's a relative pittance, but the symbolic nature of the gesture would be huge.  Aside from giving him much fanfare and goodwill from the Left and the Right, it would also signal his commitment to getting our economic woes under control.  Now that would be change, wouldn't it?

There's my two cents.