Study: Obama Beats Elder Bush's Record to Become Most-Traveled President in First Two Years of Term

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Whatever diplomatic goals he had for the NATO Summit in Lisbon last weekend, President Obama reached one milestone: he has now spent more days out of the country than any other U.S. Chief Executive during his first two years in office, according to a study of Presidential travel habits and costs from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF).  Among the findings, from NTUF Senior Policy Analyst Demian Brady:

• President Obama has made 15 trips and visited 26 countries (eight of them more than once), over a period of 55 total days during his first two years in office. This tops the previous record of 54 days set by George H. W. Bush for two years.
• Overall, Bill Clinton remains the most-traveled President. During eight years in office, he made 55 total trips and spent 233 days abroad. He was out of the country 29.1 days per year. The second most-traveled President is George W. Bush. During his two terms he took 49 trips and was abroad 215 days, or 26.9 days per year.
• Although some commentators claim Barack Obama's recent trips provide a timely distraction for disappointing election results, the month of November after mid-term elections has been a popular travel time for many Presidents.
• In a major public-disclosure coup, Brady confirmed from military sources that the normal cost of operating Air Force One is $181,757 per hour, about 80 percent more than the highest previously reported estimate. Yet, Air Force One is only a small part of the Presidential travel package, whose expenses have been subject to wild speculation followed by denials from officials who refuse to provide better details.

"Thanksgiving travelers waiting in long airport lines know how much they're paying for their trips, and as taxpayers they likewise deserve to know how much it costs to send Presidents overseas," Brady concluded. "Only then can they have a rational conversation about whether the pomp of Presidential travel is worth the price."

NTUF is the research affiliate of the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union, a non-profit citizen group; the study is available at www.ntu.org.

SOURCE National Taxpayers Union Foundation