I read in The New York Post on September 7 that the octogenarian Joe Biden has unbelievably spent “about 40%” of his time as president on vacation. According to the Post, Biden “has racked up 532 vacation days in less than four years — about 40% of the 1,326 days he’s been in office.”
According to my exact calculations, Biden has been an extremely poor no-show at either the Oval Office or Camp David 40.1% of the time. So, I wonder what unelected White House staffers have been ruling the country since January 20, 2021? Hopefully, Vice-President Kamala Harris has not been running the show.
This is in stark contrast to former President Trump who only “spent a little over a quarter of his presidency, around 380 of his 1,461 days in office on personal trips.” However, in my opinion, that is still far too excessive for a chief executive.
It definitely seems to me that the “workhorse” Biden is undoubtedly guilty of abuse of office, who has no shame.
The Post article written by Rich Calder and Steven Nelson was entitled “Biden’s Astonishing Vacation Total Revealed — Prez Took 48 Years Worth of Leave in 4.” That is because according to the Republican National Committee, “it would take the average American — who gets 11 days a year of vacation — approximately 48 years to accumulate that number of days off.”
As the Post noted, during Biden’s presidency “inflation has been out of control; prices still way too high; our border overrun with millions of illegal aliens committing violent crimes on our citizens; [and] the world [is] in a perilous state.” My own monthly grocery bill has shockingly increased 40% since the president’s inauguration, which matches the time our esteemed commander-in-chief has been on vacation.
Meanwhile, I wonder what percentage of the time from Memorial Day to Labor Day during the past four years has Biden been sitting in a lounge chair under a shaded umbrella with his feet on the cool gray sand of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware while either nodding off or listening to the quiet and relaxing sounds of the Atlantic Ocean waves gently crashing onto the beach? I suspect that the medications that his White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, D.O., has prescribed for his cognitive decline must require a lot of rest and relaxation.
I especially wonder where Joe has been spending his vacation time during the spring, fall and winter on the taxpayers’ dime? I would love to see that list of expensive resorts and private get-aways, and how much money the Coast Guard has spent patrolling offshore at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and elsewhere. It is no wonder that the sluggish Biden wanted another four years in office until he was no longer the Democrat presidential nominee on July 21 so that he could pocket another easy $1.6 million at a salary of $400,000 per year along with other lucrative benefits.
It strongly appears that in the next four months Biden is “putting him [-self] on pace to becoming America’s most idle commander-in-chief” in U.S. history. However, I think that the word “lazy” is much more accurate than “idle.” I believe that when the president leaves office on January 20, 2025, he will have spent close to 45% or more of his time in office on vacation. To use his famous catchphrase, “that is no joke.”
This also makes me wonder what percentage of the time Vice President Kamala Harris has been on vacation for the last three years and eight months? That would be a great question for a White House reporter to ask press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
Biden’s pathetic work ethic is truly shocking. Congressman Ben Cline (R-VA) needs to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives, which mandates that the president can only have a maximum of fifty-five paid (365 × .15 = ≈55) vacation days per year or 15% of a chief executive’s time “on the job” as defined by Congress excluding any work or non-personal trips, which is actually rather generous. Any vacation days taken after that amount should be regarded as a blatant abuse of office requiring the president to make the necessary financial reimbursement per day plus another $10,000 fine per day paid to the U.S. Treasury. That fine would also include any presidents such as Biden’s predecessor, who declined a salary from 2017 to 2021.
Unfortunately, since both Biden and Trump are extremely wealthy, my proposed fine may be too lenient which would require a much higher dollar amount paid to the U.S. Treasury. However, I think that the possibility of any negative publicity from an embarrassing and humiliating Congressional subpoena may be the ultimate deterrent.
- Robert L. Maronic