February 14, 2006
More on Those Blasted Motorcades
So yesterday we found out that the 1,300 motorcades needed to ferry the government's most senior officials around the District cost the city's taxpayers some $1.5 million in 2005, bringing the total since 2000 to over $10 million.
Today WTOP is reporting that any time a motorcade carrying the president, vice-president, or foreign dignitary makes its way through the District, some 40 D.C. police officers and 40 police cruisers are diverted from their daily tasks to provide traffic control along the motorcade's route. And when it's the president, three paramedics and two emergency medical services vehicles are added for good measure. WTOP continues:
Documents reveal that in addition to patrol officers, detectives, narcotics units and supervisors are routinely pulled from their regular duties to provide support to motorcades. The drain on police adds up to tens of thousands of man hours each year. When EMS units are diverted to motorcade details, they are unable to respond to emergency calls from the public.Honestly, the feds would save the District millions if they'd just let Vice President Dick Cheney travel armed. No one would mess with him then, since we all know that whether he means to or not, he could shoot us at any moment.
Phew. Feels good to get that joke out.
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Does anyone have a sense of the cost comparison between the Federal Government reimbursing localities for these services versus employing a specific force whose entire purpose it would be to fully run motorcades? (Or expanding the Secret Services to have an section to do precisely this.) Clearly, either would be more for the Feds than the status quo of not paying for it, so perhaps it would also make sense to take the cheaper/better of the two above compared to the money it costs the localities to do it themselves. (Not even looking at potential social costs of having emergency personnel not doing their regular jobs on such a regular basis.)
I am not advocating anything here. I do not have enough information for that. I'm just curious.
I'd also be interested to see the difference in cost between Clinton and Bush. I was under the impression that GWB has had little to no interest in taking part in the DC party scene and as a result, uses motorcades far less often. Maybe looking to the Clinton numbers or before would be a better gauge of what DC can expect to pay in the future.
Funnily enough, I was held up on my run home last night by Cheney's motorcade leaving Lafayette Park. I was going to mug some sort of a "please don't shoot" thing, but I figured that the secret service would not appreciate it and I wasn't really in the mood for a full body search.
Next time you see the Veep's going by I dare someone to start shouting "BIRD!"
I swear, when I become president I'm going to keep the motorcade but use it as a decoy. I myself will tool from one location to the other in an old, beat-up VW van, or maybe a Ford Escort with a Domino's Pizza sign clipped to the top. You can hear those motorcades coming for miles.
I would also like to add that this is another good example of why much of the funding problems that DC has (although it doesn't seem to have them nowadays) is more a direct result of the presence of the federal government, not the inability of DC to tax Virginians or Marylanders. DC activists should support Tom Davis' yearly federal DC stipend rather than trying to push for the commuter tax (and I do think it's an either/or situation because I doubt Congress will allow both, not that I think they'd ever allow the commuter tax in the first place.)
"Next time you see the Veep's going by I dare someone to start shouting "BIRD!"
Actually, it would be MUCH more appropriate when those Bushy & Dicky black funeral cars go by, to FLIP THEM THE BIRD !!!!!