CNN leaves out all context about Obama's inauguration cost
January 19, 2009 9:27 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Here's the misleading online report from CNNMoney.com's Catherine Clifford [emphasis added]:
The total cost of the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States will likely top $150 million by the time the galas and streamers and porta-pots are all cleaned up.
Yet another news article detailing the cost of the Obama inauguration, including security costs; costs reporters can't actually confirm. Instead the analysis is built on a projection.
Here's the real problem, though: Where's the context? Meaning, how much did previous inaugurations cost, once security expenses were factored in? The entire point of the CNNMoney article is to highlight how expensive the Obama inauguration is going to be. And readers are certainly left with the impression that the spending is historic and just out of control. But is it?
As Media Matters has been noting for days, if you add in the cost of security for Bush's 2005 inauguration, that event cost $157 million. So why does CNNMoney suggest the Obama tab is so newsworthy?
UPDATE: ABC News does the same thing. It expresses amazement at how expensive the Obama inauguration might be (based largely on security costs), yet makes no reference to the fact that when Bush's inauguration security costs were tabulated his swearing-in cost $157 million.
UPDATE: Great point, made by Washington Monthly reader:
Not to be nitpicky, but when you factor in inflation (via The Inflation Calculator at the Dollar Times website), $157M in 2005 dollars would be $173M in 2008 dollars. So in other words, this inauguration will actually cost less than the last one, from a certain point of view.
Oh for goodness sakes ... Let's just give up already.
Obama is making taxpayers pay $1B for his personal parties and lovefest. End of story. Perhaps if we just tip the scales that ridiculously far, the press will be satisified that they have created enough drama and outrage over the cost of the inauguration and stop quoting unsubstantiated costs from "sources" like Drudge and The Guardian.
This is beyond ridiculous.
There's a lot more problems than that with the popular web analyses going around. Part of the analyses is based upon extremist assumptions. You will see claims like "the City of Washington and the states of Virginia and Maryland have asked for an additional $75-million for police, fire and medical services", and they suddenly conclude that that requested $75 million is already granted. Nonsense! Requests for lots of money typically don't get the full amount requested. The original estimate of $150 million was an upper bound of how much the inauguration *could cost* in the most extreme case. Suddenly, websites turned this into real costs, and then they jacked up the figure higher and higher (lately I have seen $170 million). They also try to suggest that this is all tax payer dollars when, in reality, much of that money comes from private donations.
Quite frankly, the media is crap. Right wing media comes out saying something extreme against the Democratic party and then other media outlets like ABS, CNN, MSNBC feel they have to say the same thing for fear of being called biased. These media stations have no backbone to stand up to blatantly deceptive attacks from the far right. Thank goodness Media Matters is here to straighten out some of the nonsense!
Proof that this $75 million has not been granted can be found from the Washington Post:
"The District, Maryland and Virginia had previously asked Congress to reimburse them $75 million for their inauguration expenses. But any congressional appropriation probably wouldn't come for weeks or months."
Let's have a closer look at CNN's math: how they got the figure of $150 million. Here are the costs they list.
$45 million (all private donations) for The Presidential Inaugural Committee.
$0.7 million paid to Smithsonian Institution
$1.24 million for the actual swearing-in ceremony
$3.5 million for construction of the platform in front of the Capitol and the rental of the chairs.
$1.5 million to pay for staffing events around the ceremony
$49 million for transportation and security.
Those are all the expenses that are listed and budgeted for. Add those up. What is the cost? $100.94 million, of which nearly half of that is private donations. The cost which is not private donations is $55.94 million.
So where does the $150 million come from, CNN? That appears to be this mystery sentence "Meanwhile, the governors of Virginia and Maryland, and the mayor of Washington sent a letter to the federal government estimating that the inauguration was going to cost them a combined $75 million" which somehow is added to the price tag: a request for funding that has not been approved. What if we do add that to the price tag under the extreme assumption that that full request is actually approved, then we end up with 175.95 million, of which $130.95 million is federal funds. You may notice that neither of these numbers is actually $150 million. Sure, you may say "they said exceed $150 million", but then I say to them to be clear about the cost breakdown and which part of that is federal funds, and which part of that is already approved federal funds and which part is pending. But I guess my viewpoint is from honesty in journalism, and CNN's viewpoint is based upon trying to get a lot of attention by putting shocking numbers forward that don't add up!
Actually, after a closer look the figure is much less than these first calculations. There is an ambiguity: I assumed 49 million for transportation and security. This sentence is confusing, because it is listed under "transportation and security", yet the sentence itself suggests that it includes everything: "The total cost of the inauguration to the federal government is $49 million". But if you give CNN the benefit of the doubt, we then assume that this is "transportation and security" only (an assumption in the favor of CNN's math). But then I should not be adding the $75 million "for transportation and law enforcement" on top of the $49 million. Instead, I should be replacing the $49 million with the $75 million. Again, I am hugely giving CNN the benefit of the doubt under the extreme assumption that all $75 million will be approved. Now if you re-do the calculation, you get $126.94 million, or if we exclude private donations, we get $81.94 million.
BOTTOM LINE: CNN's MATH DOES NOT ADD UP.