I think this ABC News report from Jonathan Karl, on the White House declaring it can no longer give public tours because of sequester cuts, did not go as the president and his allies would hope:
Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames.
Diane Sawyer: “People have been e-mailing us, asking, ‘Really? Is that the only way to cut the budget?’”
Jonathan Karl does the math and concludes that ending the tours saves $18,000 per week, out of about a $1.6 billion Secret Service budget. (Does a uniformed Secret Service agent really cost only $30 per hour? Strikes me as a bargain!) The cost of the tours annually, then, is $936,000.
That’s just under the cost of a 2010 state dinner given at the White House for the president of Mexico.
Karl notes that Obama took a 20-car motorcade to travel the six blocks to last night’s restaurant meal.