Campaigning on the Taxpayers Dime

So tonight I am going to expand on the post that I came up with yesterday before it was so rudely interrupted by my COPPA finding.  As you can guess by the title, I'm not really happy about something in politics again.


I check the "What's Hot" feature on Google+ just to find out what is on everyone's mind and to try to find some interesting people or companies to follow.  I came across a post from The White House which is the official postings from the White House on Google+ that is supposed to talk about behind the scenes things and happenings.  I found this a few days ago and was rather satisfied until yesterday when the post included the graphic included in here with this statement:

"America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since President Obama took office."

They fail to mention that it went down in the previous 2 years before he took office.  What a load of crap!  These changes have to do with policies that were put into place prior to President Obama taking office.  But they have also come about by the constant high prices of gasoline.  People have reduced their usage drastically which means that we need less in total.  This isn't some miracle that this administration has done.  It is a political campaign where they throw up information hoping that you will only see what they want you to see.


So you may be saying to yourself that this doesn't really show that he is using taxpayer money to campaign, right?  That isn't the first one that gave me the opinion but it was the most drastic example until one of today's posts.  Here it is: 

"This week, the President touted the resurgence of the American auto industry, challenged governors to invest in education, held a dinner honoring Iraq War Veterans, and urged Congress to end subsidies for oil and gas companies during a trip to New Hampshire."

This all just stinks of campaigning for free, or should I say campaigning using our tax dollars.  It isn't like we have a huge deficit so I shouldn't be complaining, right?  This administration has taken advantage of every opportunity to make sure that every "good deed" that is done is on television.  I have never before seen a president appear on television as much as President Obama has!  It is to the point of being annoying.


I think what added to it was when I mentioned that I may stop following because of this someone told me that Ii shouldn't comment unless I had something to add to the discussion!  Really, I shouldn't point out the obvious that this person apparently can't see?  I guess I was under a misunderstanding that I was entitled to have an opinion and voice that opinion!  Unlike this person, I understand that they have an opinion that may differ from mine and I am not going to tell them to stop voicing that opinion.  Nor am I going to get mad if and when their opinion differs from mine.  This is the problem with getting anything done in politics.  People can't realize that they may be wrong or that the correct answer may be somewhere in between the extremes.


I am sure this kind of thing has happened with previous sitting presidents but I don't think it has been taken to this level.  Has anyone else noticed that the president didn't make too many publicized trips until the Republican primaries started.  Now he is taking a lot of "official" trips to all parts of the country.  And it isn't like these are in some kind of directional path.  It seems that they are to the west coast then to the north east then to the mid-west.  That just seems like a huge waste of fuel to me but what do I know...