Fox News claims that Obama has taken more vacations than any recent president. After a LOT of effort, we have finally found a way to prove them correct.
We have to admit, it was tough. After all, during Obama’s first term he was on vacation 131 days, while George W. Bush averaged 510 vacation days per term while in office.
|
Days Vacation per term (ref) |
| Ronald Reagan |
242 |
| George HW Bush |
543 |
| Bill Clinton |
76 |
| George W Bush |
510 |
| Obama (Term 1) |
131 |
But as good conservatives, we have a strong interest in proving that Fox News is always right about everything. So we started to dig.
ARGUMENT 1: Obama shouldn’t be vacationing when the economy is bad! He should be working!
It is true that the GDP growth under Obama has been much worse than it was under George W. Bush. When GDP growth is low, Presidents deserve less vacation time. That’s just common sense.
So we can create a weighting system that takes this into account. Let’s look at the number of vacation days each president took per term per the annual percent GDP growth during that term.
|
Days Vacation
per term |
% GDP Growth
(ref) |
Vacation Days
per % GDP Growth |
| Ronald Reagan |
242 |
3.3 |
73.33 |
| George HW Bush |
543 |
1.9 |
285.79 |
| Bill Clinton |
76 |
3.7 |
20.54 |
| George W Bush |
510 |
1.7 |
300.00 |
| Obama (Term 1) |
131 |
0.8 |
163.75 |
As you can see, this raises Obama’s “effective vacation days” (from 131 to 163), and lowers George W. Bush’s (from 510 to 300)
However, it isn’t enough. George W. Bush still took more vacation days than Barack Obama.
ARGUMENT 2: Obama shouldn’t be vacationing when the debt is so big! That’s wasteful spending!
The Federal Debt is six trillion dollars more under Obama than it was under George W. Bush. That’s got to be taken into account somehow.When the debt is higher, presidents should take fewer vacation days. That’s just common sense.
So in addition to dividing the vacation days by the percent annual GDP growth, we can also multiply our “effective vacation days” calculation by the federal debt at the end of the president’s term.
|
Vacation Days
per % GDP Growth |
End Of Term Debt
x 10 trill $ (ref) |
Days x Debt
per GDP Growth |
| Ronald Reagan |
73.33 |
$0.27 |
19.80 |
| George HW Bush |
285.79 |
$0.42 |
120.03 |
| Bill Clinton |
20.54 |
$0.57 |
11.71 |
| George W Bush |
300.00 |
$1.07 |
321.00 |
| Obama (Term 1) |
163.75 |
$1.64 |
268.55 |
This helps a little bit, but unfortunately it is not enough. Using this new adjusted “effective vacation days”, Obama (268 days) is now getting closer to George Bush (321 days), but George Bush still has more vacation days than Obama.
ARGUMENT 3: I’m a constitutional originalist. Which is really code for…
Look, we’re not proud of this. Really, we’re not.
But we’ve got to find some way of proving that Obama has taken more vacation days than George W. Bush. Otherwise, we might have to admit that Fox News spews completely false B.S. on prime time television.
We tried all kinds of other factors, even beyond the two mentioned above. Nothing seemed to work.
Even when we took into account the debt, the economy, unemployment, number of golf games, and even approval ratings, nothing was able to make Barack Obama seem to have taken more vacations than George W. Bush!
But luckily, there is the constitution.
Conservatives love the constitution: the original constitution. And in the original constitution there is a very specific number associated with people like Barack Obama. That number is three-fifths.
The number appears in Article I, section 2 of the constitution, and although it was superseded by the fourteen amendment, most conservatives know that that’s totally the least important amendment.
In the interest of delicacy we will simply call this number, three-fifths, the “Constitutional Coefficient”, or C-Factor.
We can include the C-Factor into our calculation of “effective vacation days”. After all, if George Washington only wanted Barack Obama to be counted as 3/5 of a person in the census, we can only assume he would only want him to take 3/5 of a regular president’s vacation days, as well.
|
Days x Debt
per GDP Growth |
Constitutional
Coefficient
(“C-Factor”) |
10 x Days x Debt
per GDP Growth
per C-Factor |
| Ronald Reagan |
19.80 |
1 |
19.80 |
| George HW Bush |
120.03 |
1 |
120.03 |
| Bill Clinton |
11.71 |
1 |
11.71 |
| George W Bush |
321.00 |
1 |
321.00 |
| Obama (Term 1) |
268.55 |
0.60 |
447.58 |
Eureka! This solves the problem: using this calculation, Barack Obama has taken more vacation days than George W. Bush.
CONCLUSION
Fox News is correct: Barack Obama has taken more vacation days than any president of anything ever in the entire history of time. The above graph and table prove this point.
When liberals say that George Bush has taken more vacation days, that is because they are not using the special, adjusted “effective vacation days” measurement, which has been corrected to take into account important factors like GDP growth, Federal Debt, and–of course–the Constitution.
And if they aren’t willing to include important things like the economy and the constitution, well… that can only mean one thing: they are guilty of liberal bias!!!
Everyone knows that shootings are caused by drug-crazed, video-game-playing liberals who are from poor urban neighborhoods or neighborhoods that have been wussified by liberal gun control policies. Yet this graph seems to suggest otherwise.
