Trip to Mumbai | FactCheck.org
Nov 3, 2010 ... Q: Is President Obama's trip to India going to cost $200 million per day? A: This highly doubtful claim originated with one Indian news ...http://factcheck.org/2010/11/ask-factcheck-trip-to-mumbai/
Q: Is President Obama’s trip to India going to cost $200 million per day?
A: This highly doubtful claim originated with one Indian news agency quoting an anonymous source in Mumbai. The White House says it is "wildly exaggerated," and there’s no evidence to support such a huge figure.
FULL QUESTIONThere are reports all over that Obama’s India trip will cost $200 million per day. I haven’t been able to find a credible rebuttal to this but I can’t believe it could be true.
FULL ANSWER
This story has spread rapidly among the president’s critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?
What else can you get for $200 million? Try the New Jersey Nets basketball team or possibly the Hope diamond — if only the Smithsonian were selling it.
The hard-to-swallow claim originated with a Nov. 2 Press Trust of India article quoting an unnamed "top official" in the government of Maharashtra (one of India’s states). The source was quoted as saying that Obama’s upcoming trip to Mumbai will cost $200 million per day for security and living arrangements, among other things. The story claimed that the president would be accompanied by about 3,000 people, including Secret Service agents, government officials and journalists, and will stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel — the scene of a 2008 terrorist attack.
We find stories based on anonymous sources always deserve special caution, especially when they come from only one news organization. In this case, the anonymous official is not even in the U.S. government, and any information about costs would necessarily have come second-hand at best, an added reason for caution.
Nevertheless, the story was widely repeated without any additional reporting. Soon after the article was released, The Drudge Report — a news aggregation website — linked to the Press Trust of India article, with the headline "REPORT: US to spend $200 million per day on Obama’s Mumbai visit…" Later that day, Rush Limbaugh claimed on his radio show that "Five hundred seven rooms at the Taj Mahal, 40 airplanes, $200 million a day this nation will spend on Obama’s trip to India." He repeats the "$200 million a day" claim several times throughout the show without specifying its source.
Continued here: http://factcheck.org/2010/11/ask-factcheck-trip-to-mumbai/
