And people keep saying that because they are presuming that the funds for the two come from the same source, when they do not. The White House tours were cut because of cuts to the White House secret service staff. This is a PBS program and is not funded by the White House secret service.
And you know as well as I do that this event is deliberately being mischaracterized with phrases such as "private hip hop concert for our Dear Leader and his friends". That's propagandizing.
I think it's vanishingly unlikely that the Secret Service did not incur massive costs to support a concert with hundreds of guests and technicians, many of whom probably have previous convictions and some of which need access to White House infrastructure. I'm assuming (though I don't know) that these costs on an annual basis would be significantly less than daily tours on an ongoing basis. They'd almost have to be, since one can only pack in so many Secret Service agents (although background checks on all those people aren't cheap either.) And yes, describing this event as a "private hip hop concert for our Dear Leader and his friends" is a gross mischaracterization; it's a private by-invitation party, but also one that is being broadcast for everyone and nominally exists for everyone. By that definition the State of the Union address would also be a private party since it has invited guests and is not open to the general public.
Shouldn't the question be 'did the secret service provide additional security for the event that was beyond normal expenditures and went uncompensated by those hosting the event'?
That should be the first question. The second question should be the relative worth or bang for the buck of this event versus tours or other cut expenses. And it's not necessary that we agree with Obama's valuation of the two, as long as the relative value isn't too badly out of whack. Someone has to make the decision, and not everyone is going to be happy with whatever decision is made.
As far as I can tell, no one has access to PBS's budget, either - and yet the claim has been made that PBS funded the entire event.
I'm asking for evidence to support that. Evidently, that claim is originating in someone's nether regions.
I am absolutely sure that the federal government had significant costs above and beyond its relatively small portion of PBS' budget. I don't think that is unreasonable. Both White House tours and White House concerts are one way that the public is invited into the White House, and I don't think it's reasonable for us to expect that "someone else" pick up the tab for our being invited into our own house.
In a way this reminds me of the debate over Thatcher's performance. The argument against her is that although unemployment and the dole were cut in half and every socioeconomic group experienced real and significant improvements in real income, the lower socioeconomic quintiles cannot possibly enjoy their increased standard of living because the richest quintile had an even bigger increase in income. Seems to me that there is a tendency to feel that since Obama obviously enjoys his party and White House tours are probably a bother at best, his decision to continue the one while discontinuing the other is somehow illegitimate if not downright insulting. Frankly I don't see it. If we're going to insist on across-the-board cuts, and I think that's the only way we're ever going to get any cuts at all, then we need to allow a lot of latitude in what's going to be cut.
Virtually everything that costs tax money has some sort of constituency; oxen WILL be gored. Obama is going to make the cuts highly visible and perhaps painful from time to time because he wants to spend even more money, but that does not mean that every spending decision is based on that approach. And even when they clearly are based on that approach, we're getting what we want, even if we dislike exactly how we're getting it. Can't have everything.
I'll also add that while I've never watched one of these concerts, I have no problem with them existing.
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