The Reality of Inauguration Costs

There was a lot of chatter yesterday - and a recurring subtitle on network TV - about the costs of the Obama inauguration being estimated at $150M to 170M.  Of course in this time of economic challenge this is looked upon as unsavory and gives the Obama naysayers something to complain about.

Get real.

If you add the $850B cost of the proposed stimulus package to the $1.2T already allocated to bailing our ass out of this mess, you come up with a bump to the national debt of another 2 TRILLION DOLLARS.  Well boys and girls, those of you that sit at the front of the class know that we as a country have to pay interest on that debt as we sell off Treasury bills to foreign governments and others.

Even at a 3% annual rate of return, that $170M is just over 1/30 (0.034) of what we have to pay EVERY MONTH to finance the debt we are taking on to bail out the mess we call our economy.

If you want to get mad about something, get mad about that.