High Price for High Flying Photo-Op

I never cease to be amazed at just how creative our government can be when spending our taxpayer money. And Monday’s flight by the Presidential 747 over lower Manhattan is the perfect example.

By now you’ve no doubt heard that the White House Military Office authorized the flyover, complete with Air Force fighter jet escort, to take publicity shots of the Presidents plane with the New York skyline as a picture-perfect backdrop. There have been other photos taken in the past, such as one while Air Force One was flying over Mount Rushmore.

But the big problem here is that no one in New York was told ahead of time. So the sight of a huge 747 chased by a fighter jet over lower Manhattan caused quite a stir among office workers still feeling the pain from the 9/11 attacks. Mayor Bloomberg was furious, as was President Obama. Watch for the ax to fall on Louis Caldera, the head of the White House Military Office. He took responsibility for the incident.

Perhaps this can be excused as inexperience in the new administration, although Caldera, as a former Army Secretary under President Clinton, should have known better. And the White House was quick to add that the flyover also served as a routine training mission, allowing the 747’s pilots to log sufficient flight hours. (Still, I think the FAA now allows much cheaper simulators to count as hours for training purposes.)

But here is the rub. According to the Air Force, the planes cost taxpayers $328,835 for the mission. Despite the Presidents fury, this means there is still a big disconnect between the big spending ways of Washington, and the new realities on Main Street. No one ever seems to be accountable for spending our money.

And those Washington folks are not too creative. I’ll bet you any tech savvy teenager with a home computer could find a picture of Air Force One, and superimpose it on another picture of the lower Manhattan skyline.

It would look great, and cost a lot less.

(Brian Banmiller is a national Business Correspondent for CBS News Radio, free lance writer and public speaker. The former television business news anchor in San Francisco can be reached at brian@banmilleronbusiness.com .)