What do you think of reports that Obama's trip to Africa could cost tens of millions of dollars?

He’s the leader of the free world. He has to travel here and abroad, and I say let them spend what they need to keep him safe and allow him to do what he has to do.

What’s another trip? It’s not like the US can’t afford it, right?! sarcasm

It’s only 100 million dollars max. Chump change and SO well deserved. She bought a few dresses at Target so it’s the least we can do to make their lives more enjoyable.

While the Whitehouse is shut down for the public we have an optics problem. We have no money for the people but plenty for the Royalty. Kinda smacks of the old ‘Let them eat cake’. I have no problem with presidential security but can’t help but wonder why, in times of financial struggle, we see no shared sacrifice. I would just like to see his words relate, in some fashion, to his actions.

If it’s a personal vacation they pay for it out of their own pocket. They are millionaires, you know. What we pay for is the security surrounding them. We’re paying for that whether they go someplace or not.

@Jaxk remember the Congress is controlling the sequester. We should can vote them out next “go around”.

@Dutchess_III: Yes, but if they stay home, we’re not needing 56 limousines, fighter jets, aircraft carrier with trauma center, etc. (whatever it said in the article).

@Tropical_Willie

Yes, we can do that. What we can’t do is let the spending cuts affect Obama’s vacation. We have to keep our priorities straight.

Well Africa is not very safe, after all whats a few million to protect the most power full man in the west? America can afford it…

Just hope they won’t meet that idiot South African president Jacob Zuma. He is the African version of Bush – no pun intended to Bush supporters.

I missed the “Obama’s vacation” part, where was that.
When he is on official government business as the “head of state”. Maybe we should just send a chauffeur that knows to drive on the left side of the road.

I’ll wait to see what Snopes says.

Outrageous!~ We all know that if this $100 million dollar trip was not happening, this $100 million would be returned to the 138 million taxpayers in the US (72 cents/each)!~

It is a very small amount of money, comparatively speaking. If indeed the cost of the trip is around ten million dollars, then it is at least six orders of magnitude less than the national debt.

$10,000,000 <- cost of trip
$16,700,000,000,000 <- total national debt (source)

In comparison, defense spending is around $856,500,000,000 per year (source) and federal spending on healthcare is around $882,200,000,000 per year.

Lots of trips of US Presidents have cost tones of money in the past. The President has to travel around the world. It’s important,

@PhiNotPi

I like the way you think. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to buy a new Corvette but didn’t think I could afford it. If I look at it same way as you do, it is only a small fraction of the debt I already carry. Hell, I could afford 2 of them. I sure hope the loan officer at the bank buys into this, I’m starting to get excited about my new Corvette, I just need to ignore my income. The best part is that with this added debt, next year I should be able to afford a new Maserati. I always wanted one of them.

All presidential trips cost thousands of dollars. Even more since 9/11. It’s the price we pay for being a world power. I want my president out in the world, not hunkered down in the White House.

I have no problem with “thousands of dollars” trips. The only photo I’ve seen so far of this business trip is one of them both standing behind a bar, he’s holding a beer and she’s pumping one. The 100 million dollar “trip” is spent….how?

Jimmy Fallon says that the cost of this visit will be much higher than normal because Biden wants a giraffe…

That’s what the leaders of countries do, they travel. Of course it costs money. Obama is just doing his job.

@Jaxk I’m just putting numbers in perspective. That’s my job.

Anyways, here’s a comparison for income:

$10,000,000 <- trip cost
$2,674,007,818,000 <- federal tax revenue (source)

It wouldn’t be an issue if there were a White Republican in the Oval Office.

@Jaxk Last I looked at the sticker prices of a Corvette, the only way the numbers would match is if your personal debt is somewhere in the neighborhood of Warren Buffet’s net worth. I doubt that you owe more than a few million though, so we’re not talking Corvette; we’re talking more like a used Corolla… a mid-‘80s one like mine.

Why do we care about this now? I’ve been through a few POTUSs now and this is the first time EVER I remember anyone talking about how much it costs when the President goes abroad.

Sigh. Shake head. People are stoopid.

@PhiNotPi

Just a correction for your numbers.

$60,000,000—$100,000,000 – Cost of trip
-$1,300,000,000,000 – Net income

@jerv

Apparently I need more debt if I want to spend more money. Relax, I’m working on it.

I agree @tinyfaery. “stoopid” But he’s black so…it SO makes sense now.

@Jaxk I think you are missing the point. The point is that presidential trips are far from being one of the most important contributors to the debt. If people are complaining about how much debt there is, then they should be focusing on the real causes of the debt.

I think about the surplus Bush blew by giving most of America a friggin’ trip to Wal-mart. I also think about how I didn’t hear any republicans bitching when Bush spent much, much more and took way more vacations. Not speaking about anyone here because I haven’t read what anyone on here said about it, but it’s kind of making me sick to see so much hypocrisy.

@Jaxk Part of the reason I have little/no money to spend is my aversion to debt, so you may be on to something!

What a waste! We could have stayed in Afghanistan an extra couple of hours with that money.

It irritates me that this is even an issue for some Americans. Isolation and lack of international understanding would cost Americans far more in the long run.

There’s another way to look at this: because Congress blocks almost all of Obama’s domestic initiatives, it makes more sense for him to cultivate and strengthen foreign relations. He was in Berlin yesterday and that was very important. At least to Germans. I heard that American media took little interest.

If Bush hadn’t started the Iraq war, American presidents could travel to Africa once a year for the next 1000 years and it would still cost only a fraction. So (Tea Party) Republicans, don’t dare criticize Obama about this trip in order to save taxpayer money.

I’m curious what are “Obama’s domestic initiatives” Congress has blocked, @mattbrowne?

Come on, you don’t need me to create this list, @bkcunningham. Everything important except health insurance was rejected by Congress.

That is why I asked, @mattbrowne.

It just frustrates me when people find, shall we say creative ways to still let Obama off the hook and blame Bush. Perhaps saying it frustrates me isn’t the correct word. Irritates me is more like it. I was hoping that by asking you to find the list yourself, you would understand that what you are saying about Obama not getting his initiatives through isn’t entirely true.

@bkcunningham – I will take a deeper look at the initiatives document.

Thank you, @mattbrowne.

@bkcunningham I feel the same way about Obama getting blasted for things that Bush got either a pass or praise on.

Good, @jerv. Then all agree to leave Bush out of it.

Oh how I wished we’d left him out of it 13 years ago…

@bkcunningham

They can’t leave Bush out of it. Bush is the Gld Standard for what a president can or should do. If Bush did it, that’s proof that Obama should do it.

@bkcunningham If we leave Obama out of it too, and hold politicians of both parties the same standard, I’m fine with that.

@Jaxk Not quite, but anything that both did/do is equally right or equally wrong. To say otherwise is to admit that the entire platform of Republicans is to cast aspersions on Democrats and oppose everything they say/do rather than introduce/promote sound policy based on differing ideology.

@jerv

That’s a cute way to put it but let’s inject a little reality. When Bush went to Africa, the whitehouse was not shut down for tours. Obama closed the Whitehouse because he said we can’t afford the security. Most o the cost for his African vacation is….. Drum roll please…....Security. If you recall 2009 when Obama told corporations they should not go to Las Vegas for thier conferences, who went? The GSA had thier multi-million dollar conference in…. drum roll please…..Las Vegas. So by the way, did the IRS.

The issues are not because Obama is black or even because he’s a Democrat, it is because he’s a hypocrit. Hypocracy goes to character. I believe it was Martin Luther King that had a dream that we would judge people not by thier color but rather by the content of thier character. That is exactly how we are judging Obama and the results aren’t good.

When Obama rails against Bush’s $400 billion deficit, calling them scandalous and unpatriotic and then creates $1.3 Trillion dollar deficits, that is hypocritical. Judge him on what he says and what he does, not what someone else does.

The facts are, during President Obama’s tenure, government spending has had the smallest rate of increase vs. the administration of any other president in the past 60 years:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/…

Choose not to read it if you wish, but if you ignore it, you are part of the problem. At least stop parroting FauxNews “inaccuracies”, and check the facts before you speak.

Don’t confuse current (or any) government spending with the record trillions in national debt, which happen to be accumulating very quickly at this time after many government actions (before anyone ever heard of Obama….ill-advised tax cuts while starting two “off-budget” wars, etc.) are now coming home to roost. Government revenues cannot keep up with these bone-headed maneuvers. Present government spending has NOTHING to do with it. Your grandchildren can rightfully blame many of our “patriotic leaders” over the past 15 years or so for creating this mess, but not President Obama.

My mother sends me many of those out-and-out false and fabricated emails ( i.e. the “luxury prison built in Obama’s former congressional district”) and I must send her fact-check links and gently ask her to be sure that something is true and accurate before just sending it to everyone she knows.

So please. One lovable but gullible lady in her 80s is all I can handle right now…
.

I’m not sure you can handle even that. The ongoing resolutions are designed to keep the spending high. That’s what they do, keep spending at current levels with current annual increases. That’s why we can’t get a budget. You can blame Bush all you like but I’ll never know how the Stimulus, healthcare, Omnibus, mortgage modifications and all the rest can be ignored. Hell even TARP was blamed on Bush but the repaymnent was credited to Obama. This is a nice trick, but at some point a little reality must sink in even for the most radical liberal. Or maybe not.

@Jaxk This is where all of that crying “Wolf!” bites people in the ass; once your credibility is gone, you cannot get reasonable people to believe you when you point out something legitimately wrong.

@jerv

Apparently you fit into the ‘maybe not’ category

@Jaxk Up until that last comment, I thought you were here for rational discussion, but that’s the second time this week that you’ve proven that you’re just trolling.

Say it with me now….

The. Lowest. Rate. Of. Spending. Increase. Under. Any. President. In. The. Past. 60. Years.

Thank you.

@jerv

I don’t know why I respond to you but let me just assume for a minute that you actually be;lieve some of the stuff you say. If you look at spending under both Bush and Obama it is obvious that obama went crazy with spending. Actual dollars or as a percent of GDP. Now I know you all want to blame those deficits on Bush and you all go to great lengths to show how someone else is to blame but even a little logic should dispel that. Stimulus alone was a $trillion. You can’t blame that on Bush. Even if you spread it across the first term, that is a quarter trillion increase in spending per year. That is one program. Then to try and tell us that Obama has not increased spending just doesn’t pass the laugh test.

One final point. The president gets both blame and credit for what happens on his watch, whether he deserves it or not. For some reason, you all want to treat Obama differently. Yes, things are bad but it’s not his fault. For Christs sake, man up and take some responsibility.

@Jaxk You completely missed my point in order to turn this into a partisan thing that it can only be trolling.

My remark about credibility was party-neutral because both parties lie and thus lack credibility. You decided to use that to bash me and anybody more liberal than Michelle Bachman. That’s trolling.

@OneBadApple

Say it with me now, The largest annual deficits ever recorded for 4 years running.

@jerv

You addressed your comment to me, you said I have lost all credibility, how could I possibly misinterpret you comment to think you were talking to me?

And just for the record, I only bash those that are left of Karl Marx.

@jerv I can only assume from your comments that you did not open my original link.

Relative to spending, these are documented, undeniable statistics. Shout at the rain if you want, but facts are facts.

Regarding the current deficit, the major causes of it have been in motion since at least the late 90s, long before you or I ever heard of Obama.

While I think you will agree that any sitting president can only have a very limited effect on our economy, I do know that when Mr. Obama was a member Congress, he was one of few who had the integrity and intelligence to vote against the bogus war in Iraq. There’s a trillion in the debit column right there (“Off-budget”, Bush and Cheney called it).

And don’t get me started on the unnecessary deaths of perhaps 100,000 people, most of them civilians.

Bush gets a ‘pass’ on his contrived “War On Terror”, yet now The White House is accused of a cover-up “worse than Watergate” when four diplomats are killed in Benghazi ?

Please…

@OneBadApple I know the numbers, but you have to admit that truth and politics don’t always get along, regardless of party affiliation. It’s rather hard to take either one seriously… even harder to take seriously the side that has failed fact-checking twice as often as the side that you already know is of questionable veracity.

Am I the only one with a ring-side seat here?

@OneBadApple

I didn’t open your link because I won’t sign up for their newsletter. I can’t get to it otherwise. It doesn’t really matter since I’ve seen that manipulation of the data before. I’d hardly call them statistics or facts, let alone undeniable.

I wouldn’t agree that the president only has a very limited afftect on the economy either. Their policies can have a very dramatic affect.

This is not really consistent with the question but since you’ve started down this road, let me clarify. The cost of the wars were off budgte for very good reasons. By keping them off the budget that cost would disappear as the wars ended. Obama put them on budget which now requires a budget cut to eliminate and we all know Obama is not a budget cut kind of guy. The unneccessary deaths? Saddam killed an estimated 1 million of his own people. The 100,000 seems small in comparison, even if it’s right. And exactly when did bush ever get a pass on anything, let alone the war on terror?

“I do know that when Mr. Obama was a member Congress, he was one of few who had the integrity and intelligence to vote against the bogus war in Iraq. There’s a trillion in the debit column right there (“Off-budget”, Bush and Cheney called it), ” @OneBadApple said.

BUT, Obama wasn’t a member of the US Senate when they voted to invade Iraq.

You are right, bk. I should have said that he spoke out publicly against the original invasion when he was a state senator from Illinois, then as a U.S. Senator in 2004 voted against the surge in Iraq….

@Jaxk “Manipulation of the data”?? If that’s not a catch-all denial when presented with indisputable evidence, I don’t know what is.

I found no sales pitch for that site which prevents anybody from viewing the records as they are without first buying anything. If you really want to know facts rather than just bobbing-and-weaving around them, Google any site you want, and they will show you the same stats.

Somehow I think you still won’t believe or accept them.

I think we’re done here….

(burp)

@OneBadApple

The only way you get to that conclusion is by assigning the 2009 spending to Bush. Unfortunately that was Obama’s first year not Bush. Delude yourself if you want to, I’m not so inclined.

@Dutchess_III I think I’ll join you….

@Jaxk I personally am not reaching ANY conclusion. However, any reliable website which you might bother to explore DOES show that conclusion. The statistical facts are there for anyone who isn’t hypnotized by FauxNews every day.

Be so inclined….don’t be so inclined. I really don’t care….

@Dutchess_III and @jerv you guys got any peanuts for the peanut gallery?

I’ll sit and watch too.

@Tropical_Willie Yep. And tossing the shells over the edge of the gallery. But watching and listening carefully

@OneBadApple

Just so I understand this correctly. We have the highest debt to GDP ratio since WWII. We have the highest deficits in history. We have the slowest recovery from recession in history. And none of this is Obama’s fault because it’s Bush made him spend too much and he has no control over the economy anyway. Is that about right? Of course we know he has no control over the IRS, the Justice Department, NSA, State Department, or GSA. Kinda makes you wonder what he does control. Seal Team Six I guess, he takes credit for what they did. Other than that he has no control or even any knowledge of what happens in his administration. Yes dear hearts, he’s a hell of a leader. Clueless comes to mind.

Well, it certainly appears that we will always be on opposite sides of the spectrum of thoughts and ideas, and that’s fine. But let me break down some of what you’ve said above, and then perhaps we can stop wasting each others’ time:

- Regarding the national debt / GDP ratio, o n c e a g a i n, these things were headed into the toilet in 2008, most of a year before Obama took office. He did not create this, but is still trying to correct it. Be thankful for the ‘stimulus’ spending, without which (and most economists agree on this) we may have gone into a full-blown depression, and you and I might be standing in the soup line together.

- Anyone who took one semester of 9th Grade economics will tell you that the LAST thing we should want during economic crisis is a fast recovery, which have historically been false, and anomalistic. A slow and steady recovery is exactly what we all should hope and be grateful for. Housing prices are slowly rising, national unemployment slowly falling, and the stock market is breaking records. Maybe you never took the class, but there are still newspaper and magazine articles all around us which strongly support a slower recovery… ( FauxNews, probably not so much).

- The IRS has been investigating many groups claiming “social welfare” 501( c)(4) (tax exempt) status, including ‘Priorities USA’, which is pro-Obama. Not sure (and we’ll likely never find out) how much personal knowledge the president has had in these investigations, but it is a documented fact that almost every president in the past 100 years has used the IRS as a political weapon. Somehow, during Obama’s watch, it becomes a ‘scandal’.

- Regarding covert NSA surveillance, I’m sure that you know (or maybe you don’t) that a secret panel of 14 federal judges must independently review and approve every single action that the NSA takes before it is allowed to monitor any public communication (incidentally, 12 of these 14 judges are republican). We’ll probably never know how many terrorist plots have been averted, but I’m sure that President Obama (and even Bush) understands the trade-off of protecting citizens vs. the risk of political “scandal”.

Only time will reveal it, but I think that history will show that our current president did a pretty good job, especially considering the huge pile of shit which was handed to him in 2009…..

Yes, it is unlikely that we will ever agree on much. There is little or no evidence that Stimulus helped with the recovery TARP is the program that stablized th banking industry and arrested the fall. We bottomed out before a single dime of Stimulus was spent. Economic growth is not even up to our normal growth rate let alone what is needed for a recovery. If you want a slow recovery, you certainly got your wish. With about 2% annual growth we may yet be standing in those soup lines.

As for the IRS, they have admitted to targeting consevative groups. You can’t sweep that under the rug nor justify it by saying everybody does it. There are always accusations but seldom an admission of guilt.

As for the NSA, they collect this data via a general warrant. Somethng the constitution tries to prevent. We have just learned that it may not always be foriegn calls or emails but anyone they don’t know resides in the US. And just to add spiceo the issue we already know That Eric Holder will lie to get warrant. How trusting do we have to be?

I believe history will show this president to be bumbling and inompetent. A better rating than I would give him.

So your own link shows modest but steady economic improvement starting in 2010 vs.the two or three years prior, and continuing until the present (see, I actually open and read YOUR links). The average rate of GDP growth in the U.S. since 1948 has been 3.21%. It has been forecast to be about 2.4% for 2013. No great shakes, but not bad at all considering where we all could be today.

All soup line plans can be suspended indefinitely.

And we are all supposed to be throwing stones at President Obama ?

Sorry…..No sale….

.

Oy.

I’m having fun playing with that link. Can we go back to the 1960’s?

@OneBadApple

I would read your link but you don’t give me the question, only the answer. Even when I go to the Politifact site, they don’t sort by answers only questions. If you want the link read, you’ve got to supply enough information to get there.

If you are happy with 2% growth, it’s no wonder you would support Obama. It seems that’s all he can do and it’s good enough for you. The polls would indicate that most of the country is still disapointed.

Whose polls ?

….....oh, wait….I think I know.

Never mind.
.

@Dutchess_III

Apparently some of us don’t like those high growth rates. Give it a few decades and we’ll be sitting pretty. Of course if the labor participation rate continues on it’s current path we’ll all be unemployed. Maybe that’s nitpicking.

@Jaxk Would you explain the conflict between the labor participation rate that you keep going on and on about and the U4–6 unemployment figures, and do so with consideration that the 18–25 demographic, those who have yet to ever be attached to the workforce yet but could be, has grown? Statistics without context are meaningless, and thus far you’ve cited that one often enough that you need context to avoid making it look like cherry-picking in light of the weigh of contrary evidence.

As for growth rates, it’s a balancing act to grow good things without shrinking other good things or growing bad things. I’m not sure a high GDP is worth lower median wages, higher costs, and increased poverty rates. The economy is a complex web, and you need to look at the big picture before saying something is good or bad, while also looking ahead to see how sustainable it is.

@jerv

I’m not sure where you’re going with this but let me give it a shot. The labor participation rate is simply measuring those over the age of 18 that have a job in the labor market. During the 80s we saw the participation rate go way up as women entered the labor market in droves. The market was fairly level from 2000 til 2009 and now seems to be on a downward spiral. A number of things are happening which is causing this and none of them good. Baby Boomers are retiring and many of them retiring early simply because there are few jobs for someone in their 60s. Younger workers are not finding jobs simply because the labor market is weak and experienced workers are preferred over those with no history. And the most alarming figures come from SS disability. Many are applying for disability because their unemployment has run out. The problem is that once on disability few ever return to the workforce. As the participation rates drop we are straining the already overburdened tax and SS systems. This is all primarily due to the weak job market. The unemployment figures decline giving us a false sense that the economy is recovering but wages and jobs are not.

The declining wages are part and parcel with this problem. Most of the decline in wages are a result of high wage earners losing thier job and either remaining unemployed or taking a low wage job to get by. The job creation figures also mislead because most of the jobs created are low wage or part time jobs. Until the job market recovers this trend is going to continue. GDP measures all products and service sold in the country. Until that starts growing at a better paces we won’t be creating enough jobs to turn this around. More products and services equates to more jobs and higher GDP. More jobs equates to higher wages. They are all connected but if you don’t look at all the statistics, you will be misled into believeing there is a recovery when it is not really happening.

I can’t really address your ‘good things vs bad things’, since I don’t know what you’re talking about.

@Jaxk Thank you for that detailed, logical response, and the respectful manner in which you presented it.

As for the good things vs bad things, everything has a cost; no such thing as a free lunch. That’s pretty, much where I was going with that.

@jerv

You’re giving me an incentive to go down the regulation road. Are you sure you want to do that? I know how you hate my regulation rants.

@Jaxk Not particularly. Personally, I think we would be better served by a few intelligent regulations than by our current crush of half-assed ones, so I think we have at least some agreement between us; the major difference is that you trust people to do the right thing while I assume that at least some will be greedy and/or corrupt enough to make reality diverge greatly from theory. That difference is why I favor some regulation over a total hands-off approach.

@jerv

I won’t argue with the total hands off approach since no one is arguing for that. During the 70s we made great strides in cleaning up the environment. Smog and water pollution were major issues that required massive effort to correct. Good stuff. But those efforts were driven by solutions. We figured out how to fix it and then regulated that everyone do it. The environment today is quite different. We’re regulating and then trying to figure out how to comply. There was an old story from my management training days. ‘When the Japanese pass new regulations they hire 1,000 engineers to fix the problem. When we pass regulation here, we hire 1,000 lawyers’. There some truth to that but what it ignores is the fact that we need 1,000 lawyers just to decipher the regulation and figure out how to comply.

The truth is, I have a lot of confidence in the engineers that can address most problems. I think we would be much better served by letting them find the solution to a problem rather than the lawyers and regulators. I’m sure you heard my ‘5 mph bumber story’ but I’ll tell it again just to show how it works.

Insurance companies and citizens were complaining that even a very low speed impact would create thousands of dollars in damages. Regulators wanted to make the car companies shore up thier bumpers to withstand an imapct at 5 mph with little damage. The auto industry suggested that if they simply regulate the bumper hieght, so all cars would impact on the bumper, it would solve the problem. The regulation instead mandated that they create massive bumpers at massive cost. Industry can solve the problem better than legislators or regulators. That doesn’t do away with regulation, it merely makes it more effective.

@bkcunningham – I checked the PolitiFact.com article. If this is real, everything looks far more promising than what I thought. But how impartial is PolitiFact? There seems to be some controversy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politifact

@mattbrowne

You may want to look at this rebuttal. The big difference is the handling of TARP. In Nutting’s analysis, all the TARP spending is counted against Bush while all the repayment of TARP is credited to Obama. The repayments show up in the budget as negative spending. This artificially reduces Obama’s spending. If you take that out, Obama becomes the second biggest spender in the past 50 years. Only Nixon is worse.

@Jaxk – Thanks for the link. There are always different ways to look at numbers. Obama was one of the few far-sighted politicians, who “as a member of the state senate in Illinois, he expressed his vocal opposition, calling it a foolish decision by President Bush; and when he joined the U.S. senate in 2004, he voted against the surge and against additional funding for expanding the war.” On his watch as President he inherited the spending needs for the American troops in Iraq and they are huge.

@mattbrowne

I’m not sure if we’re missing each other or if you’re just making a different point. The defense spending is not what makes the difference in this list of who’s the big spender. It is the repayment of TARP that makes the difference.

The war spending is water over the dam. Yes, he voted against the surge in Iraq and then implemented a surge in Afganistan. Frankly both were useful in helping to end the conflict. Iraq is over and Afganistan is ending. I suppose they are still useful for political debate but don’t seem to reducing the budget.

I think you two are just proving that intelligent people can look at the same sets of facts and draw different conclusions, neither/none of which are provably wrong.

It is a little funny to me, @mattbrowne, that you would question the reliability of Politifact. I have questioned the site numerous times and liberals who love the site tell me it is very dependable…so long as it is something that makes conservatives or Republicans look bad. So then when I use it as a source that disproves what you said about Obama not getting his initiatives passed, you question the source. It is interesting to me how it was turned around. @jerv‘s comment about the set of facts is true.

@bkcunningham – I was simply referring to the Wikipedia article. I can’t be the judge of how dependable it is. If it’s applauded by people from the whole political spectrum, that’s great.