And yet the White House remains closed to the public.
It costs $181,000 per hour to operate Air Force One.
Via WaPo:
President Obama will travel this week to Austin, where the jobs market has been booming, to kick off a new focus on the middle class and economic growth.
Obama is planning a campaign-style “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tour” across the country, beginning Thursday in Austin, a magnet for new tech jobs. The push seems designed to help jump-start the president’s second term.
Obama’s momentum has stalled on Capitol Hill in the past few months, with the president unable to convince a divided Congress to pass any gun-control measures or to thwart the budget cuts known as the sequester. Over the past few weeks, Obama has been playing a so-called inside game, inviting selected senators from both parties to dinner in an effort to reach a broad accord on fiscal issues, but such a deal has eluded them – so far, at least.
Now, White House officials hope that Obama, by campaigning outside of Washington, can galvanize the public and pressure Congress to back his legislative agenda, including economic measures he outlined in February’s State of the Union address.